Last Opportunities 5thImpHalo XOver
by avatar11792
Summary: A rip in the cosmos delivers an unexpected surprise to the nascent UNSC, mere infants on the interstellar stage.
1. Chapter 1

Last Opportunities (A 5th Imperium/Halo crossover)

Fleet Captain Odovacer scowled as he analyzed the reading from his Fleet implants. The parasite warship _Retribution's Embrace_ was rocking as wave after wave of electromagnetic energy struck the forward shields, on a scale fit to make even the Electra-class heavy cruiser shake like a puppy in a hurricane. "Status of the shield!"

"Dropping like a stone, sir! Shield burnout in twenty seconds!"

_Just what we need_. "Has all auxiliary power been channeled into the forward bays?" Technically, he knew the answer through his implants: they were fucked.

"Yes, sir! Still dropping!"

"Give the sound-off again to buckle in! What's our distance from the rift?"

"350,000 kilos and closing, sir! We're at .73c and climbing! Thrusters and engine systems not responding! Communication nonresponsive, either!"

"Sound-off given again, sir! All security fields active, buffers initiated!"

"Fantastic! Everybody hang on tight!"

Reach, Orbital Station 12

1712 hours

March 23, 2301

Lieutenant Morales was occupying the sensor station onboard the UNSC's communication satellite Sierra 13 (yes, technically 12, but it involved a joke played on the commander involving vodka and a turtle. Don't ask). He was currently involved in the art of sleeping, which admittedly wasn't the duties required of him at the time, but he wasn't really in a state to care currently.

At least, until the alarm on his console began beeping, and a VERY large red light on the top of it starting flaring in brilliant red strobes. Morales blinked his sleep-hazed eyes, stared at the readouts, then leapt from his seat after uttering a rather garbled sound, between a squeak and a shout. He punched the comm immediately. "Action Stations, Action Stations! Commander Dallas to the bridge!"

Across the day-lit Western Hemisphere of Reach, stations in orbit began blaring their own signals as a white light flared in geosynchronous orbit, and a large vessel fell from the sky in flames.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One

Reach

0300 hours

March 25, 2301

Everyone worth anything in Reach's military command structure was gathered in what was deemed the Anvil by the soldiers who manned it. There was a reason it was called the Anvil: an entire Separatist Fleet tried to smash it with 20 days of orbital bombardment, and then got smashed in low orbit in turn by a surprised but prepared UNSC fleet which had been performing maneuvers in a system a few light-years away. Needless to say, the Separatist Fleet was smashed against both opposing forces on ground and sky, and few made it out. Hence the Anvil.

Currently representatives from every corner of the quadrant were funneling in, as the discovery of what was being deemed the Find of the Next Thousand Years was spreading through fast Slipspace couriers. Currently, up to 23 salvage teams had been deployed to the site in northern hemisphere of Reach, but the vessel's impact in the shallow seas had vaporized a large stretch of water with the energy of impact, and visibility was very poor due to the mist. However, tentative orbital scans had revealed an intact ship, without even a buckle in the hull, let alone the utter catastrophe everybody had been expecting from such a turbulent crash.

But the problems with getting to the site had in fact been a good thing, as it gave time to UNSC MilSpecWep experts, military generals, and UNSC tertiary governors from the quadrant to begin trickling in. In only two days, a flotilla of Slipspace vessels had arrived, and rumors were abound with the shuttle crews and various planetary and station personnel, who occasionally caught broken snippets of conversation from their superiors trundling to and fro.

Already, the rudimentary scanning in orbit had revealed several interesting facts, including one which had MilSpecWep twitching: the energy from such a reentry at close to 77 meters/second should have caused a lot more damage to the planet that a light mist of vaporized water. With a multi-kilometer ship fireballing through the air at such speeds, Reach should be in the middle of a catastrophic extinction-level event, but it wasn't. And the ship was intact; which said magnitudes about its hull strength, and the inevitability of super-strong metallic alloys which could survive such punishment.

Onboard the UNSC merchant vessel _Clam Bake_, the salvage teams were deploying. The _Bake_'s 150-meter frame was hovering over the site of the crash, mists from the still-boiling water rushing in still enveloping and whooshing around it. Zephyr-class dropships were loading up with salvage gear and modified drop pods, to penetrate the boiling water and get to the ship with minimal intervention and maximum speed. Once the crew got out of their pods in protective skinsuits to protect from the boiling-hot water, the gear would be dropped comparatively next to them, and operations would begin. The most recent scans revealed that the hull was composed of a metallic alloy that, while of an unknown composition, seemed partially magnetic, which meant that the salvage teams could do this the easy way and get ready to prepare a series of hard-points for giant ass, 30-meter electromagnets to attach to. The _Bake_ would then drag the vessel to the shore, which was approximately four miles away with the vaporized waterline, and also fortunately uninhabited (and now uninhabitable) by any of the new colony ships landing. A 200-kilometer no-fly zone had already been established in preparation for the vessel's towing, and troops had secured the entire area.

The leader of Salvage Team was British maritime veteran by the name of Chester Morrigan. His life had been a boring one, and frankly he looked and behaved like the dullest person on the planet. Gray, nondescriptive-appearance or build, the works. But he did know his stuff, and had been doing this sort of vessel salvage operation in waters for a long time, him being 57 and all. However, that had been a few systems from here, and when he had been shanghaied here, he was faced with the most difficult salvage op of his career.

He was currently suiting up, along with his co-worker for quite a few years, a woman with dark red hair named Sarah Kerrigan. She had been assisting Morrigan for about four years now in maritime ops, and before had been in the UNSC's Maritime Corps program, a planet-side program to survey potential officers for field command. Though she's tested and performed well and had absorbed her studies very adequately, she had voluntarily quit UNSC duties after the death of her mother, and returned home. She was suiting up next to him, smiling her ass off, thinking over and over again "_holyshitholyshitholyshit—_". Instead of saying that however, she had proposed the giant-ass magnet idea, and Reach's planet-side construction facilities and yards had been more than happy to oblige.

"So, think this going to work?" she asked Morrigan.

The graying man grunted. "Hell no. I'd prefer going down there in a diving suit or a robo-boat like normal, but the hot water won't let us. These drop-pods are brand-frickin-new , according to the MilSpec types. Don't trust them yet." He squeezed his haggard frame into the suit, then began shouldering gear which he could carry with him underwater.

"I think it will," Sarah said.

"Your idea, though. Wouldn't have recommended it if you'd thought it wouldn't." Chester smirked.

"Not just that. Hell, even if my idea doesn't work, the military ain't going to let something like this get away with sitting there. Hell, they might get one of their ships which can land on a planet, get it into the water, and have it PUSH the ship to shore."

"Crazy enough to do it, that's sure." Morrigan finished. "Ready?"

"Ready." They left the dressing station laden with their gear. Outside lay the open hangar bay, howling misty winds whipping only a little bit though the thick open bay doors. Their crew lay ready, though the Zephyrs were still getting loaded, judging from the frantic movements of the shuttle crews. It was a bit mad, but Morrigan and Sarah were fine with it, so their team was too. If either of them began panicking, this usually meant that shit was neck-deep anyway. "We ready boys?" Sarah bellowed over the wind.

"YES MAAM," they shouted.

"Them load the gear, you scallops!" she shouted. They complied, grabbing their gear and trotting to their respective ships. The crews, having loaded the heavy stuff, assisted and complied with the salvage team's operations. Sarah got her gear loaded, then pulled a small micro-camera, attached it above her left eye, and walked over to the edge of the bay doors, looking down.

Few humans see what she was seeing. The ship, traveling at such speeds (over 3x the speed of the K-T dino-killer back at Earth), and composed of futuristic unobtanium metals, should have cracked the planet clear to the mantle, caused continent-wide firestorms, and almost tore the atmosphere off the planet. Instead, it hadn't; evidence showed the vessel slowing down MUCH more than it should have been realistically capable of moving, but it had.

But it had done enough. Impact in the shallow sea had resulted in the instant vaporization of trillions of gallons of water, which was beginning to cause massive cloud-cover to build up. In addition, in the two days since the impact hurricane-force winds clocked at over 500 miles an hour had torn over the site, but had calmed considerably, down to a more manageable speed of 125 miles/hour. Even at the window to such carnage, the winds nearly were knocking Sarah off of her feet, only her magnetic boots keeping her steady enough to film.

She looked up. Aside from the massive metal radiator fins jetting out and up from the _Clam Bake_ itself, the sky was black, thick with clouds and the vaporized water from impact. Rain was going to come down soon, but not until the waters had begun to cool to slightly less than boiling. Amidst the swelling clouds, the winds and overall atmospheric turbulence was resulting in an eye forming overhead, a black where no wind lay, but the stars overhead could barely be seen. Barely, because the vessel's streak through the atmosphere had totally wrecked the ionosphere, causing massive Aurora Boreali across the sky, leaving the Eye flickering with light at an intensity rarely seen by planetary folk.

Sarah swept her cam across the sky, then swept her cam down, catching the mists, swirling winds, and the howling rumble of the water underneath them. She smiled, then mumbled loud enough for the microphone in the camera to hear her, "Hell of time, boys!"

She smiled, switched off the camera, stowed it back in her locker, and rejoined Morrigan and the team, who from the looks of it had finished preparing. The waters looked close to calming down, and they had work to do.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Two, Part One

Reach

1512 hours

April 4, 2301

Commander Dallas walked into the briefing room. As one of the Station commanders in orbit, his job was to monitor the space lanes, and having such a large object get through virtually any form of surveillance, and in addition having every manned (or unmanned) instrument in range not even detecting it, was bad. He was here to give testimony as a result, same as the other orbital station commanders.

Dallas was very nervous, but also rather excited. Reach was still in development, and tentative plans to turn Reach into an iron fortress of the UNSC were still years in the future. Hell, colonies and towns were still being systematically laid across the surface, to ideally exploit the natural resources of Reach and to create a world which could be utilized both efficiently, environmentally, and thoroughly.

This new ship was going to throw off years (hell, decades) of planning amongst Dallas' superiors. Already, in the 10 days since the Impact, the ship had been dragged to shore, and exterior airlocks of the vessel had been mapped out but not yet breached. Already, it was incredibly obvious to pretty much anybody in earshot that this vessel was as far beyond current UNSC technology as their tech was beyond a Zulu spearman.

The ship, when fully dragged by the merchant vessel _Clam Bake_ to a shoreline far away from the oceanic turbulence, was revealed to be ovoid in shape. Weapons bristled along the exterior, though plates in lines along the hull seemed to be retractable or flip-overish in concept, meaning even more weapons or other functions underneath the hull. A few of the projections from the hull seemed to have been partially melted in the reentry heat and the subsequent crash, though not much. This demonstrated yet again just how incredibly tough some of this material was.

There were three obvious hatchways onboard the ship that the salvage teams had discovered, and were of a rectangular design which could easily fit a tall human. They had explicitly ordered not to attempt to either breach or try to electronically hack their way in, though against their numerous complaints to the contrary. The generals and MilSpec officers currently residing in the Anvil had decided that there was a security risk, and trying to force their way or even do anything without "proper examination" might trigger active security features in the alien ship if they weren't careful.

But Dallas' excitement was also of a more immediate nature. Since he had prepared for this hearing, he was nervous about what would occur in the room, but he had pulled a few strings higher-up, and he was allowed to stay during the preliminary examinations. Then he could also stay during the holo-vid video broadcast of the first attempt to breach the vessel and get inside, which would be broadcast after the inquiries.

The guards checked his ID and allowed him to pass. The door whooshed open, and he entered the briefing room. It was a circular room, with a large circular table and three concentric tiers of rows of seats beyond, the lights getting dimmer and dimmer until the last row which was virtually black. Every seat, at both the table and the rows beyond, possessed a holo-projector and a computer monitor. As he had been briefed, he stood on the left corner of the room, where a small line of seats were propped against the wall, and he sat with the other commanders who had to be debriefed also.

"This meeting will come to order," came a resounding soft voice from the room's speakers. The rustling Admirals and other dignitaries went to their assigned seats, first the table occupied by the most important dudes, then the rows beyond filled with analysts and technicians for the video from the ship.

"Thank you." A projection of a human female rose from the table. It was a first-gen AI, nicknamed Sheila Dallas dimly remembered, programmed with just enough human-interaction protocols to appear friendly and efficient. "My name is Sheila. I will be the monitor-AI in charge of these proceedings, and processing all relevant and requested data."

Dallas, from his view, saw the pointy hat of Fleet Admiral Ross as he rose from the center of the table. His podium rose from the center of a hole in the table, papers neatly laid out in front of him. "Thank you Sheila," and Sheila vanished, a holographic projection of Reach taking her place, its light orbiting above the table. "Ladies and gentlemen." Ross nodded to the audience in attendance. "Needless to say, I'm sure all of you know of the circumstances with which we find ourselves in, but I will briefly summarize for the sake of thoroughness and for the cameras.

"On March 23, 2301, on 1712 hours standard UNSC Earth time, a number of orbital stations in orbit above the western hemisphere of Reach unexpectedly monitored a massive gravitational and electromagnetic disturbance approximately 500,000 kilometers above Reach's surface. It crashed in the Northern Hemisphere in the shallow Rorshact Basin at a speed of approximately 77 meters per second, and has caused heavy regional devastation in that part of the planet. Though virtually uninhabited, we have sent local fire teams out to contain the tertiary forces of the impact, including several large firestorms to the southwest caused by prevailing winds and the minimal amount of surface ejecta that resulted.

"The effects of the impact are rather aberrant from the estimated mass of the vessel and the speed and angle with which it ploughed through Reach's atmosphere. Though an immense amount of seawater has been dispersed as water vapor into the air and will soon begin to alter the local climate, particle ejecta from the impact site is very low, far lower than it should. Footage caught of the vessel as it plummeted down," and here the holo of Reach flicked into video mode, "and this shows, in slow-motion, that the vessel is decelerating far faster than it should realistically have. Reach should be smashed into tiny rubble, ladies and gentlemen, or slightly less so. The relevant physics data is on your desk in the relevant files, but the summary is that since the ship is virtually undamaged, we are dealing with something VERY advanced, and capable of slowing itself down within a very short time span.

"The first part of these proceedings will cover the interviews of the commanders of the orbital stations which recorded the unexpected Impact. Afterwards, following a brief recess beginning at 1600, we will at 1700 hours reconvene and watch, via video broadcast, the salvage teams do their job.

"Commander Evans of Orbital Station 1, you're first. Take the podium and Sheila will run you through the questions that have been compiled." Ross' podium retracted under the table, Sheila's humanlike visage appeared, and the interviews began.

One by one, each orbital commander went up and gave his testimonies. The average length of time per testimony was about twenty minutes, and was assisted for the sake of efficiency of the sensor data compiled in the data chips that each commander plugged into Sheila's mainframe, recording the information for the audience to peruse and for analysis at a later date. Commander Dallas was called up as the eighteenth commander called. He gave his testimony, submitted the sensor readouts of the station, the comments and opinions of his crew, and his own personal observations and comments on the data recorded to Sheila, and then walked to the back of the room and sat in a chair that had been reserved for him.

While he waited for the inquiries to finish, he scanned the data that was available to officers of his rank and assignment, including summaries of the other reports from his fellow commanders. As he read them, he noticed a pattern: no sensor had caught indication before the ship was already flashing through to the surface. None; absolutely no device, human or machine, had caught this damn thing's reentry, and virtually nothing of the mysterious portal through which it had come from. And worse, immediately after the ship had emerged the rift or portal had condensed on itself and winked out of existence. The analysts would find that VERY irritating, as it was their job to find and deal with threats to the UNSC, and this certainly qualified.

However, the ship currently had immediate priority. The rift could wait. Recess was soon called; the officers, including Dallas, trickled out of the room into the dining hall where there was food, and pigged out. A lot of people used the facilities, and one of the bathrooms suffered a catastrophic problem with their plumbing due to too many people coming in at once. When at 1700 hours the officers were called back into the briefing room, a few officers never made it due to the said bathroom malfunctions.

Those problems were eventually solved, however, and Sheila obligingly projected a 3D holo-screen, through which the video broadcast of the salvage teams would be shown. Dallas took his seat, the lights dimmed, and they waited for the transmission from the salvage team's cameras to begin.

Chapter Two, Part Two

The video opened up into at first a wide variety of dozens of cameras and their viewpoints, then narrowed to a select dozen, from every second team. The screen enlarged to hold them all in suitably high detail, and ballooned in size over the main central table until it dwarfed them. The screens projected in such a way that all the viewers could either watch the large overhead projections, or could watch and go into further detail on their own table monitors. Here is what they saw:

The salvage teams had earlier removed the giant electromagnets from the alien vessel's hull, and had discarded or removed their equipment. However, all of the salvage teams had kept their safety skinsuits on, in case of a sudden problem in trying to enter the alien ship. The cameras pivoted around, scanning the people around them; all of the teams were split amongst the three accessible main hatches, as once they would get inside they would out and begin a systematic analysis of whatever was inside.

Camera One showed something interesting on Hatchway 1, and amidst radio chatter Admiral Ross quietly asked Sheila to zoom in on Camera One's view. It grew and pushed the other views off-screen. In the upper left-hand corner was the name of the broadcaster: KERRIGAN,SARAH. On the upper-right view were her health stats, as monitored by the suit and a few medical instruments on her.

She was speaking: "Okay, I'm beginning a tentative scan of the hatch with our portable sensors." With her fellow team, she activated her instruments. And a second later, everyone leaped violently backward as the hatch slid silently open, showing blackness inside. Sarah chuckled. "Umm, well that was unexpected. Security Team One, enter. Careful with the hazmat suits." A group of soldiers, wearing white hazmat armor and fully bio-sealed, entered. The camera zoomed from Kerrigan and came to a rest on their camera guy. Inside was blackness, the occasional flare of light as their high-intensity flashlights splashed light around. Blackness echoed down the ship's corridors, swallowing the light they generated, but the immediate area was of the security team's concern. "Hold up," the cameraman (Hicks) said. The team stopped and quickly swept the corridor beyond the hatch under their weapons, then flicked their hands. "All clear, all teams converge on Hatchway One for vessel embarkation," Hicks said.

The camera flicked to Kerrigan's camera, as she and her team entered the vessel. The corridor was slightly tiled, but not enough to prove an obstacle. Just in case, Kerrigan and her team, and indeed all of the teams, had orders to keep their magnetic boots on unless otherwise specified or it "proved vital to tactical circumstances." Kerrigan's breath rasped in the camera mike perched next to her lips, narrating into the camera for the officers as she and her team swept the area. "Well, everything seems untouched by the crash in here. There no loose panels or anything like that, hanging from the ceiling. In fact, aside from the slight angle of the floor, this ship could be perfectly fine, at least here. We're moving on."

They moved right from the hatchway, and the corridor soon changed, continuing on but with a series of tubes in the wall. Sarah commented. "Well, we have something different here. Looks like possibly an elevator system, though there is no cable box or cable. Might have snapped, though. It might also be a pneumatic-air elevator system, jets of air pushing people up to their floor. There are a series of panels next to each tube, seems to be written…oh my God."

The room rumbled ominously. It was writing, and it was in English.

Sarah regained her composure quickly. "Sorry, that was really unexpected. English writing, huh. Uh, we're marking this for much further analysis." Her team placed a series of markers and kept going.

At the end of the corridor, the room blossomed into a large open area, a series of barracks from what little remained intact. Though they seemed to have been thoroughly mounted into the wall, every single item at least in here that wasn't integrated into the ship's structure seemed to have pulverized against the bulkhead. Kerrigan's team carefully wandered over to examine the debris, which consisted of miscellaneous fluids splashed all over the wall, splintered fragments of some kind, and sheared, warped metal frames, possibly chairs or pods of some sort. She bent over, picked up a large splinter. "Sir, if this ain't wood I'm a Venusian brick. We're gathering samples for analysis."

Off-camera, a voice echoed: "Sir, I'm gathering some of the fluid on the wall here, and sir...bio-scanners are reading it as human, sir."

Dead silence in the room; even Dallas' breathing seems to have stopped.

Even Kerrigan's voice quavered a tiny bit. "Everybody on my team, train your lights on the wall."

The wall was coated in red.

_Well, now we know what happened to the crew_, Dallas thought rather sarcastically. _At those speeds, they probably didn't know what hit them_.

The journey through the ship continued. The vessel was so large, that the video on Admiral Ross' orders began regularly switching back and forth from Kerrigan to other teams scattered throughout the vessel. Teams began finding equipment and large consoles, conformed for human-style bodies, but often with the chairs ripped out of the floor, only a stump remaining. Ross and the MilSpecWep officers were abuzz when the equivalent of the ship's armory was located, weapons and what appeared to be ammunition packs scattered all over the floor. The team that found them were ordered to give them a wide berth.

As the teams continued, a grim tale emerged with more and more detail added to it. At such speeds barreling through Reach's atmosphere, the anti-grav and inertial dampener systems, or whatever their equivalent onboard were, had failed, and failed spectacularly at the last millisecond, right as the ship hit the crust. Devices were discovered near the "bottom" of the ship that had slagged themselves and gave off unusual radiation readings; after an examination from farther away, it was theorized that perhaps these were the devices that had prevented the ship from smashing into the planet, some sort of emergency-overload anti-grav generator or something. The evidence seemed to point that way, seeing as it only lay on the side of the vessel that had ploughed into the sea, and various warped machinery near the slagged devices.

Eventually, the view was settled back on Camera One, Kerrigan's team. By this point, the officers and observers in the room were speechless, and more than a little intimidated. This ship had survived something that no UNSC vessel had come close to surviving, and what advanced technology that was recognized was vastly powerful. And it was in the control of humans and probably built by them, but clearly not of the UNSC's flock. How far had this ship traveled, in that mysterious rift?

Kerrigan's team, eventually entered a large hexagonal room, with large command consoles mounted onto the walls and what would probably have been a central chair in the middle. The chair had ripped off its moorings, and Sarah approached its crumpled remains. When she lifted the chair towards her, a bleeding human face stared emptily at her. She jerked back in surprise, then looked in further detail. It wore a form-fitting bodysuit, gray, with unknown insignia on its shoulders and chest, probably ranks of some kind since it was a human. Its nametag read: ODOVACER. Probably their commander; she reported her comment to the room. She gently laid the chair, with the body still strapped in, flat on the floor with difficulty, then continued.

Most of the consoles had been smashed due to debris, but Kerrigan moved towards one that didn't. Along with a series of LED-lit touch displays, there were several unknown devices on the console, as well as a flat board with the outline of a human hand. Looking at the board and then at her left hand, she gently placed her hand on the pad.

The video shook as a rumble shook the dead Bridge. The console in front of Sarah lit up feebly, and as she turned her head a patchwork quilt of light smeared across the room, as machinery that had been damn-near destroyed tried their best to either reroute or repair themselves.

The room in the Bridge echoed again, as Kerrigan and her team looked around a bit wildly. _This is the Imperium vessel __**Retribution's Embrace**__. Zero life signs of Imperial crew detected. Zeta-Omega protocols enacted. Auxiliary, non-enhanced human life signs detected_. A pause. The feminine voice rumbled, then shifted in pitch and tone, deepening in pitch until it was a rich baritone. _This is Dahak Unit One-Zero-Seven. Core programming overridden, sentience modifiers engaged. Greetings, humans. Who are you?_

Chapter Two, Part Three

Sarah Kerrigan gaped in shock at the voice that emerged unbidden from the vessel's walls. She jerked her head around, looking at Morrigan. His grizzled face was utterly blank, but he did turn at her and nod. He thought she would be the best qualified to speak, then.

She straightened her spine, breathed once, then said, "This is Sarah Kerrigan, and I'm in charge of UNSC Salvage Team One. Are you an AI?" She blurted out suddenly, even though it seemed rather obvious that it was.

_Yes I am. I am Dahak, Unit One-Zero-Seven, primary AI in temporary control of the Retribution's Embrace's full computer systems. Due to the loss of the crew of the vessel, my sentience modifiers have activated as per Fleet Regulation One-Zero-Zeta-Gamma_. Sarah could have sworn that the voice was pausing for dramatic effect. _Per Fleet sub-regulation Fiver-Gamma-Echo, priority Epsilon, I must inquire as the nature of the UNSC, as you referred your government to. It is the nominal government of the local humans in the area?_

Sarah gulped. She looked down at her vocoder, strapped on her wrist. Analysts and such were on their way, and a few ad-hoc ambassadors too, to talk to this AI presumably. They were asking her to stall it until they arrived, and answer as few questions as possible. She looked back up. "Yes, the United Nations Space Command is the government in charge of this planet, as well as our other ones. Why do you ask?"

The voice remained silent, then suddenly curst in a flurry of activity. _Sensor systems engaged, repairs at 74 nominal activity. Range is a minimum of 32 light-seconds. Activating full scan of the surrounding area_. Pause. _Detecting non-hypercom systems, analysis analogous of radio and unknown interferometric communications. Patching in…heavy intersystem activity, standard tech base is of a non-Imperium nature._ Another pause, then the voice spoke, slowly and deliberately. _I'm sorry to intrude, Miss Kerrigan, but I'm detecting further ships heading towards my location. I assume they're backup, since my speaking to you?_

Yeah, pretty obvious. Not surprised the thing couldn't figure it out. "Yeah, pretty much. The big guys upstairs would like to speak with you, just with some of their "sanctioned" ambassadors." She snorted. "Don't want you talking to somebody like me, I guess."

_Why should I not speak to you_? Dahak seemed genuinely puzzled.

"Well, I imagine for…security reasons, and such. They're not sure what you're capable of, I guess."

_Would you like to know the status of internal and external ships' systems? I am authorized to divulge minimal information under Fleet regulations to non-Fleet human personnel in case of situations like this, if you wish_.

"Uh, sure." Sarah shrugged to the others, who were still poking around and staying away deliberately from their little discussion. "Why not? What's broken from the crash, and what's operational?"

_Hull armor is undamaged, and cooling rapidly. External energy weapons are offline, though I register undamaged missile racks in Storage Bays 2 through 23. Due to the heat from the impact, there is slight damage to most communications equipment, though I have repair drones restoring the Hypercom to full capacity. Engines and reactor systems are at 79 capacity and climbing. The habitation quarters for the crew are largely destroyed, due to temporary failure of the ship's gravitational and inertial dampeners. Full life-support initiated. Internal factories in repair mode, but extracted to be operational in 23.4 hours_.

"Uh, good. Can you take off?" She was just curious.

_Currently not. Emergency overloads have destroyed my anti-grav and inertial suspensors, otherwise my flight capability and orbital capability is unimpeded._

"Um, you mentioned internal factories of some kind? What do they, uh, 'factorize'?"

_The two internal ship's factories can replicate most of the components of all ship's systems, aside from facilities like the Hypercom and transmat systems which require specialized materials_.

"Can you replicate new equipment for crew quarters? You know, the smashed up furniture and the like?"

_Once repairs are completed, I can proceed as you have instructed. However, I can only begin construction on non-essential ship components without the authorization of a Fleet officer, or a suborned human tot substitute for Fleet authorizations. Most ship systems, however, are under lockdown until said circumstances occur._

"Hold up! What was that you said about a 'suborned human' before? Sounds important."

_Under Section Three-Seven, Subsection One-Four, an Imperium vessel defunct of crewmen under a list of whatever reasons and in an either unknown or hostile environment can in theory suborn people from the nearest human habitation to provide a command crew and needed secondary reserves. It is technically not required, but if deemed necessary by BattleComp, i.e. myself, Sarah, I could either ask for volunteers or, as you might call it, shanghai others to man the ship in a needed emergency._

"Do you…need…a crew now?" Sarah whispered.

_Relax, Sarah. I do not, nor do I detect via my sensors any reason to need a crew. I'd like one, of course, but that is not necessary for the moment._

"Oh, that's good." Her legs felt weak. The past few minutes she'd learned about this thing that there were a lot benefits to this ship, but also quite a few risks.

_Miss Kerrigan, I detect several ships approaching from the south. They seem to be coming in for a landing. Your ambassadors, I presume?_

"Yeah, I guess so. Um, since we're humans, and all that, what you think you'll be doing now? You crashed on Reach, but I can't see us getting you back into orbit anytime soon, and you came through some sort of funky space-rift thing I heard."

_I possess only fragmentary records of my transition through the rift as you call it. What little I have recorded corroborates your story, though I need additional data_. The voice paused, then sped up again like before. _Accessing UNSC orbital feeds and tertiary comm sources. Encryption overridden, accessing…accessing UNSC orbital station relays…accessing all broadband and wireless networks within a 16 light-second radius of Reach…accessing historical files, technology reports…accessing governmental systems, culture…done_.

Another pause; Sarah was getting irritated a the AI's behavior; if it was caught, boy those superiors of hers were going to be pissed. "Well, did you get caught? A lot of people are going to be pissed at you if you were caught."

_Of course I wasn't caught. I possess computational abilities magnitudes above the total combined computers of this system, from what I've detected. However, I did have a good reason. I needed information about your society and culture to analyze, and from I have seen you people need my help._

"Sorry?" Sarah wasn't sure she'd heard right. "Help in what way?"

_Everything. Compared to the humans from where I come from, your overall technological progression has been steady but much slower than that of the Imperium's. In the event of an AKu'Ultan incursion or other hostile alien power, you might not be prepared to face them on a level playing field. One of my mission directives, now that I seem to be cut off from the Imperium itself in any direct manner for quite some time, is to assist your government and military by accelerating you to my level. I shall focus on repairing my onboard factory units as much as I am able, for they will prove essential to my efforts_.

"Uh, thanks?" Sarah, at this point wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but whatever this Dahak was planning, it seemed positive for everybody.

_You're welcome. Your regional ambassadors have boarded the ship and are en route to the Bridge. I shall speak with them about the necessities of an alliance._


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Three

Construction Shipyard 14, Reach

2000 hours

September 23, 2308

Captain Sarah Kerrigan of the UNSC Electra-class heavy cruiser _Titan's Lament_ smiled as she observed the black silhouette of her ship in drydock in orbit of Reach. She smiled for a number of reasons, first of which that this would be her first command, after acing her classes back on Earth. Earth, when she'd left it, was a bustling hive of activity, dozens of orbital modules in orbit, spawned from the _Retribution's Embrace_'s orbital factory units, producing the components for the fleet of Electra-class cruisers that were being established as the baseline for the UNSC's new Fleets.

With the explosion of mankind out into space using Slipspace Drive, colonies and manufacturing facilities were spreading across man's sector of the galaxy like wildfire. In only seven years, with Dahak's contributions to Slipspace theory and engineering, already mankind possessed over 43 brand-new and rapidly-expanding colonies, and controlled an area of space equivalent to over 2000 cubic light-years.

The problems with such incredible expansion, however, was a near-perpetual lack of manpower, and also a high demand for military and security forces to patrol this new territory opened up. Thanks to Dahak, which had remained on Reach but remained in constant touch with over 12 worlds via brand-new Slipspace comms and transmat couriers, the UNSC was building a fleet of ships that was unrivaled in firepower any time in human history.

When the news had broke of the discovery of the advanced unknown human vessel, the public at first didn't really notice. Then, as advances began pouring out and the automated industrial units began replicating themselves in orbit, and transmat systems began popping up across the human worlds, a wave of fascination with the alien-yet-not AI known as Dahak swept across UNSC culture. At this point the dam broke: the UNSC MilSpecWep released all of the information in Dahak's databanks into the public domain, including across the broadband wireless networks across Earth and its colonies. The only information held back was military weapons designs and such, for obvious reasons of security.

The history of Dahak had become widespread, and indeed even famous. Since the event of the Achuultani invasion in the other Earth, the Fifth Imperium had begun the consolidation of the Fourth Empire's abandoned derelict fleets, and also had begun the process of miniaturizing and incrementally more powerful vessels in the Imperium's fleets. When the _Retribution's Embrace_ had been lost to the rift, its mothership the planetoid _Chaos Giver_ had been only 1500 kilometers long, but had over 120 times the combat capacity of the original _Utu_-class _Dahak_. Even a parasite warship, as they called the _Retribution's Embrace_ before, possessed its own transmat system, a miniature Hypercom system, and even a miniature Core Tap, which resulted in this class of ship ballooning to over 3 kilometers in length, about 2.5 kilometers in width, and weighing about seventy million tons.

Post-Achuultani, the heirs to the Fifth Imperium's throne, through conspiracy and murder, ended up stranded from Imperial space on a sublight parasite warship, before the _Electra_-class was conceived. After, eventually, the heirs and their party were recovered, it was deemed that subsequent generations of parasite warship designs should be considerably larger, massive, and self-sufficient that before. Over the years, this resulted in very intense research in miniaturizing things like Hypercom systems which traditionally had been very hard to minimize any further than a substantial mass of a planetoid.

Sarah, herself, had resigned working with Morrigan, who had given her a fond farewell speech and a VERY large cake which they all ate, and then she had left and headed for Earth. Reactivating her commission was no easy task, but she eventually finagled her way into getting back into the Academy, learning the secrets of Dahak's world and its technology. Her mind soaked it up like a sponge, and before long she was registered for line officer and starship command.

And with that, had come the 5th Imperium's biotechnic enhancement. It had quickly become the standard across the Fleet, the advanced technology aboard the _Retribution's Embrace_ and the biotechnic labs built on other worlds soon afterwards making it possible for every military man or woman to be enhanced to their highest potential. It was amazing, she mused, the changes which had occurred to her and by now millions of people across the UNSC: when she'd first reopened her eyes, her vision had seemed preternaturally keen, as if she could identify individual dust motes across a tennis court. And she very nearly could, for one of Dahak's simpler alterations permitted him to adjust the focal length of her eyes, not to mention extending her visual range into both the infrared and ultraviolet ranges.

Then there was the "skeletal muscular enhancement." She'd been primitive enough to feel an atavistic shiver at the thought that her bones would be reinforced with the same synthetic alloy from which the _Retribution's Embrace_ was built, but the chill had become raw terror when she encountered the reality of the many changes the AI-controlled surgeon's tools had wrought. Her muscles now served primarily as actuators for micron-thin sheaths of synthetic tissue tougher than most UNSC alloys and powerful enough to stress her new skeleton to its limit, and her circulatory and respiratory systems had undergone similar transformations. Even her skin had been altered, for it must become tough enough to endure the demands her new strength placed upon it. Yet for all that, her sense of touch—indeed, all her senses and perceptions—had been boosted to excruciating sensitivity.

And afterward…her enhanced sense of smell was capable of separating scents with the acuity and precision of a good chemistry lab. Her modified eyes could track individual dust motes and even choose which part of the spectrum they would use to see them, and could even see almost perfectly in the dark. She could snap a baseball bat barehanded or pick up a sixteen-inch shell and carry it away and subsist for up to five hours on the oxygen reservoir in her abdomen. Tissue renewal, techniques to scavenge waste products from her blood, surgically-implanted communicators, direct neural links to any computer system with broadband capabilities…yeah, she'd changed. She could run at 45 kilometers per hour, and could bench-press a light jeep. She once dented a tank, for God's sake, and without even any bruising on her knuckles!

When she came out of the surgery, she was like a baby once again. She had to get used to her body again, and properly control its new, virtually-godlike abilities. Within a few months of convalescence she had accomplished this, and indeed was one of the last generation of cadets who had entered non-enhanced. The UNSC had adopted several new policies, one which mirrored the Fifth Imperium's laws to a great extent. Any colonist off to a new world or and branch of military personnel would receive full biotechnic enhancements.

And, rumor was that MilSpecWep and ONI were working on improving what had already been given to them wholesale, with the assistance of one of Dahak's clones.

And that was another thing. Dahak, as his regulations had instructed him, had begun creating perfect copies of himself, which could then be brought via transmat to assist the UNSC in "modernizing." Currently there were hundreds of Dahaks floating around the UNSC, assisting in upgrades to UNSC technology, helping UNSC researchers understand over 20,000 years worth of scientific advancement in Dahak's computer systems, or any number of highly-useful things. There were even rumors that Dahak was helping the UNSC understand his own coding, copies of the AI willingly letting themselves get torn apart, code by code, to further understand AI technology in general. And, possibly, even Dahak's successor.

Reach was benefiting as well from Dahak's arrival in their universe. The higher-up's plans for Reach, including its eventual fate as the undisputed fortress and C&C of the UNSC, was already underway. Dozens of ODCs were under construction by Dahak's orbital factory units, spread out across the globe for maximum protection. Self-replicating automated satellites were assembling in the skies above Reach providing valuable first strike capability. Further away, massive space stations, over 5 miles long, were being assembled at each of Reach's Lagrange Points, as well as 4 Space Elevators being built around the equator to assist in relaying materials to the surface like bulk packages and such quickly and efficiently.

Sarah Kerrigan was currently en route to the _Titan's Lament_, her cruiser. Top in her class, she had served a rushed candidacy program to get her to this position. The UNSC quickly needed command line officers, and were pushing a bit fast to get them. Not that Sarah minded; she knew she had what it would take to command one of these huge ships. Surrounded in the construction ribs of a drydock in orbit, the Titan's Lament was receiving its finishing touches, but all systems were operational and loaded. Her ovoid 3-kilometer frame showed black against the sunlight for stealth purposes, weapons mounts and sensor grids barely poking across her virtually smooth hull. It possessed, like all Electra-class vessels do, an even assortment of long-range missiles and various close-range energy weapons.

For long-range weapons the _Titan's Lament_ carried over 5000 hypermissiles that can travel at over 10000c, 2500 with 20-gigaton shaped-charge antimatter warheads, the rest with gravitonic warheads that create 40-meter wide black holes. In addition it possesses over 12000 sublight 10-gigaton antimatter missiles which could achieve a maximum velocity of over .87c before losing phase lock.

Closer in, the _Titan's Lament_ possessed over 47 molecular disruptor beams with a maximum range of over 10 light-seconds, which causes the target's hull material to undergo nuclear fission, amplifying the force of the blast tremendously. With a slightly-longer range of 17 light-seconds were seven much more powerful gravitonic beam slicer banks, which were a needle-thin beam of pure gravitonic force that could punch through most conventional ships like a needle through butter. With a two-second duration, the beam could swivel minutely, often slicing entire ships in half.

Last but not least, for point defense the _Titan's Lament_ possesses over 224 hyperbeam turrets. Requiring larger energy reserves per turret than the other beams, hyperbeams are used for enhanced point defense, often shooting down missiles and other things that get through the outer shield. That, along with the inner shield, provides a last layer of defense.

Combine that ridiculously formidable array of weapons with Imperial battle steel alloys which withstood a 77m/s collision with a planet and barely scuffed the paint, an outer shield which can withstand gigatons of enemy fire, and an inner shield which could absorb over twice that, the _Titan's Lament_ was a dream come true.

The best part was, give it a few months, and there would be dozens of them. A few years, and hundreds.

Captain Sarah Kerrigan grinned yet again, and she giggled as the shuttle entered through the port docking bay, and the bosun's pipes sounded for arrival. Mankind was coming out into the galaxy, and coming to stay.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Four

Harvest was primarily a rural world, a world of farmers and people that wanted to get away from the increasingly hide-bound world of the UNSC's cosmopolitan cities. As per UNSC regs of a few years ago, an ODC network was established at roughly the same time as colony ships and transports were authorized to land on new worlds—this was a measure enacted by ONI as a way to regulate interstellar expansion.

Colonization had slowed since the Great Boom of 2309, which had seen the fastest growth ever seen in human populations ever. Accompanied with this were the first UNSC-sponsored state retroviruses, which was administered in the womb via pill and would "rewrite" the DNA of the infant, thus eliminating a large variety of genetic diseases and sort of "cleansing" the gene pool of mankind of infirmities.

The retroviruses had been in part developed by a Dahak clone working with a private firm of biotech conglomerates. Dahaks had spread across the UNSC and had broken into the private sector on numerous occasions, helping firms and businesses flourish and develop new methods of commerce.

This new prosperity had helped fuel both the expansion of man's colonies so fast and had also helped fuel the incredibly explosive growth of the new UNSC Fleet. By 2315, over 300 Electra-class heavy cruisers had been manufactured, and from the beginning with Dahak's assistance these ships incorporated UNSC Slipspace Drives, making them true interstellar vessels. Beginning with the launch of the _Titan's Lament_ in 2308, ships had been launched at a steady rate of about seven per month slowing down around 2314 but still rather fast production before the Impact. Old UNSC vessels had been steadily decommissioned, the ships coming home to be scrapped and used as raw material, their crews going back to the Academy to be retrained and to receive their biotechnic enhancements. This provided a veteran cadre of trained, experienced officers who knew what they were doing to crew the first large clusters of ships launching.

By 2310 Electra-class cruisers were beginning to be supplemented by other varieties of vessels. It had been intended by the original Dahak and the UNSC strategic planners that Electra-class heavy cruisers would act as a core for the new UNSC fleets, and by 2310 their numbers had been deemed large enough and experienced enough that further commissions of ships were to be launched. The first new type of ship were the Kraken-class destroyers, which would possess primarily long-range missile weaponry, the majority of their close-range beam weapons stripped out and replaced by larger engines and superior ECM systems. This new class of vessel would act as long-range scouts. In 2312, the Peregrine-class assault carriers were being launched, each large 5-kilometer vessel carrying over 500 fighters and a variety of munitions for said weapons.

Reach by 2311 had started to grow rapidly in its own right, and its ODC network, over 48 overlapping fortresses, were finished, accompanied by self-replicating satellites and steady patrols of Kraken-class destroyers. With its defense network established, Reach's industrial capacity had switched to planetside production. Cities, transportation networks, and transmat networks had sprung up across the face of the planet, with several large installations sponsored by the Office of Naval Intelligence for their own purposes in the mountains, likely to replace the Anvil wth a more modern facility.

With Reach accounted for, the UNSC focused on establishing the security of its far-flung colonies, which was becoming an increasing concern. By 2323, over 80 colonies across 3500 light-years had been formed, so quickly that there was virtually no distinction between the first colonies founded or the latest ones just landing. Thus the Octanus Protocol—the protocol which dictated ODCs forming alongside colonies at the same time.

Harvest was founded in 2326, the farthest world from the influence of UNSC space. Pilgrims and wanderers, as well as families looking for a less regulated came here, sponsored by the government and landing with land already pre-built for them by Imperium-derived automated construction units. It was a growing, happy world.

By 2327, this happiness would end.

ODC Alpha, Harvest

0700 hours

March 01, 2327

Commander Morales had advanced a considerable ways since the Impact. He had advanced in rank and now controlled one of the most powerful Orbital Defense Centers in the sector. The _Hera_ was a monolith of metal, surrounded by and enveloping some of the deadliest weapons known to man. She was also the first to include the first of several upgrades, including a massive spinally-mounted MAC cannon, which accelerated 250-ton rounds at over .5c at targets in range. Each round was encapsulated by hoops of Imperial Battle Steel, and inside each one contained a large cartridge of over 10 kilograms of solid antimatter. _When this rounds hits a ship, BOOM! _Morales thought with satisfaction, though the ODC had not yet found anything with which to be concerned about.

The UNSC's paranoia was well-justified, at least to those in control. The history recordings from Dahak of the first battles against the Achuultani, and the horrific statistics and casualties wrought, convinced UNSC leaders that investing a sizable percentage of their budgets into enlarged military forces couldn't hurt at all. Hence the large ODC networks around each world, and hence the still-immense starship construction going on even now.

Currently, Morales was leaning over the railing on the command deck, looking out over the sizable C&C of the ODC. Around them was a projection of space, the consoles and walkways of the command deck and C&C seeming to be poised over the edge of the abyss itself. Morales especially enjoyed the brilliant globe of Harvest hovering "underneath" them, rotating slowly amidst infinity.

A quiet ping from the ODC's external sensors drew Morales attention. "What's up, Sensors?" he asked the ensign at the post. "Anything important?"

The blond ensign, Sanzhei his name was, jerked his head from his post, brows furrowed in confusion. "Commander, we're reading unknown ship profiles. Matches neither known UNSC designs, or any old ones for that matter." Morales activated his own neural feed, accessing the ODC sensor data like Sanzhei was. Large ships, coming in-system slowly, with bulbous projections and no obvious external weapons. They seemed…almost sculpted.

That did it. "Bring us to Combat Alert, and alert the _Braveheart_ to return to base. All personnel to their stations, and fighters to their posts."

"Yes, sir. Slipspace courier sent."

Morales grunted. The _Braveheart_ was one of the newish _Peregrine_-class assault carriers, and had left the ODC _Hera_ about an hour ago for a training mission a dozen light-years away. She should get back to provide reinforcements in plenty of time, assuming there were of course any hostile intentions on the part of these foreigners.

"Send out our hello to them, comms. Let's see how they respond."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Five, Part One

Shipmaster Yu'Songalee of the _Hierarch's Fury_ stalked down the amethyst halls to the Prophet's behest, escorted by a retinue of the beastly Jiralhanae which sneered at the Sangheili's fury. This request by the Prophets, blessed may they be, had long been expected. The Unggoy Rebellion had led to severe losses with Fleet of Sanctimonious Justice and the Fleet of the Regiment's Uprising, causing a large part of the Covenant forces in the Unggoy sectors to retreat in shambles.

The _Hierarch's Fury_, the Command Carrier of the Regiment's Uprising's forces, had been embedded in the chaos of the conflict, center row in the Battle for the Yu'Soong Cluster. Shields flaring with weapons impacts on all sides, it had, shamefully, been forced to retreat to complete tactical preparations in the Unggoy Sector and had been unable to initiate planetary bombardment. The consideration that Yu'Songalee's actions had resulted in the destruction of the Unggoy command ship in the battle, causing massive disarray at the last just before they Slipspaced away, would most likely be rendered irrelevant.

Thus, Yu'Songalee felt justified in his rage as he stormed.

He was met at the Prophet's quarters by the Elite Guard, who checked his credentials and let him pass. The massive doors, coated in armor and a force field that could withstand one of the Smaller Fires, slowly slid aside, and he entered the Prophet's Inner Sanctum, an honor few were allowed. A part of Yu was in reverent awe as he passed the hallowed chambers of that which he had only heard in tales, but the fire of his spirit was too hot to be that easily quenched. In the chambers, hovering on their holy daises by which from they preached, floated the Prophet of Reconciliation in serene contemplation.

Yu'Songalee's face bore a strong impression of confusion, his anger temporarily put aside. "By the Prophets." He kneeled. "Sir, I was summoned by all of the Three. Where are the Prophets of Inclusion and Severance?"

The Prophet's chair hovered slowly, turning on its axis towards Yu more fully. The Prophet of Reconciliation was old of his race, his face saggy and lined heavily with age and the worries of state. "I regret to say, Shipmaster Yu, that my two esteemed comrades have become… indisposed, for the time. I will conduct the questioning of your actions myself, if that is fine by your will."

A baited question; Yu'Songalee knew better than to barb the old and venerable Prophet. "I abide by the will of the Prophets, sir."

The old Prophet smiled. "Very well. Sit, please."

"If it is all right to you, sir, I remember better on my feet."

"Very well. Explain, in your own words, the situation beginning when the _Hierarch's Fury_ exited Slipspace."

Yu'Songalee stood stock still as he recalled every event of the debacle. "We exited Slipspace by the Hour of Mourning, Third Declination. I ordered the Unggoy at the sensor post for an in-depth scan of the system, which commenced immediately. It picked up over 2500 missile contacts heading towards my location. I ordered the task force to full maneuvers, and sensors picked up the enemy task force located behind the moon of the fourth planet."

"Why did you not order the launch of the Seraphs?"

"Range was too far, and fighters would be insufficient against the missiles heading our way. They were like nothing I've ever seen; the rebels Unggoy, curse them, must have been modifying their drives for burnout speeds."

"They are heretics, commander, for relinquishing their embrace of our holy faith. It is not a surprise, mayhaps, that they would dare to…blaspheme…the works of our gods."

"Perhaps, Holy One. We then devoted all of our efforts to shooting down the missiles, but they were too many. We lost many vessels, as you know, then the Unggoy ships Slipspaced in and fired point-blank plasma salvoes, slicing into our ships like cream. Our forces were decimated and worse."

"So you failed to glass the third and fourth worlds, their main sources of industry, and the primary source of the heretic's arms?"

"For just reasons, sir. They outflanked us, slaughtered us, and we were…forced to retreat." The words spilled out of Yu'Songalee's mouth like water from a burst damn. Anger at his failure was rapidly turning into shame, shame at what he had allowed to happen. Out of a fleet of about 57 ships, he had lost over 40; a failure that he would not be surprised if it resulted in his execution to improve morale.

Yu did not fear death. He feared the loss of what his life has been made of entirely, his search for a higher honor. This debacle would destroy what honor his entire blood-clan had, and leave the honor of both himself and his ancestors, and his children, nigh into the depths of the past and the mists of the future, in ruin.

"I sense your anger, Shipmaster Yu, as well as your fear of dishonor. I know that you have committed no dishonor, that you did and saw as was best at the time, and for one I myself am grateful that you survived to bring me this…discussion." Yu loosened slightly, his tense muscles unsuspectingly taut with tension. And promptly tensed up again as the aged Prophet continued. "However, I'm sure that many others, others less…tolerant…of failure would seek for vengeance. Follow me, Shipmaster."

The Prophet's throne was halfway out the door by the time Yu's legs had unlocked and were pursuing. Numbers of questions poured through his mind, but a large portion of his soul was so numb at the prospects of life continuing that he paid no mind. And, in his mind, no time flashed at all between standing in the Prophet's chambers and standing… "By the Forerunners. I am unworthy." He dropped low, his hands braced on the ground.

"In a way you are correct, Shipmaster Yu, but in a way not." The Prophet of Reconciliation waved his arms in the dark cavernous chamber in which they had emerged. "The Sanctum of the Arbiter is the resting place of those who have gone before. Here rests the vanguard of the Great Journey. Every Arbiter from first to last. Each created and consumed in times of extraordinary crisis."

"I do not belong in their presence."

"Myself and the Council have discussed your case, and we know you are no heretic. This is the true face of heresy, the Unggoy who threaten to destroy the Covenant we have maintained for so many years." He turned his ancient eyes to Yu'Songalee. "And, we are prepared to give you the means to eradicate these traitors and heretics, once and for all, if you will but accept the calling."

With a flick of his hand, a metallic pod descended from the ceiling, containing a blossoming flare of white light. The prayers of centuries descends, Yu's eyes watering from both reverent awe and the light in his eyes. At last the pod descended, and Yu hesitantly approached. His claws reached, paused. A thousand questions rose, then descended to unimportance. At last, he reached, touched the dark ebon metal of a thousand generations, then turned to his Prophet.

The person who spoke wasn't Shipaster Yu'Songalee anymore. His will and drive had burned his soul, and been forged into…something else. Something holy, something pure. A sheer force of will. Something unstoppable.

"What would you have your Arbiter do?"

Chapter Five, Part Two

The Unggoy commander Slout in charge of the Covenant destroyer re-named _Uuknar's Revenge_ was comparatively new to this whole command thing, as Grunts put it. Since their usage in Covenant hierarchies hadn't included commanding starships, when the Unggoy Rebellion broke out they had been forced to do some serious on-site training. Needless to say, the first few weeks of the campaigns against the Covenant had been devastating.

But they had learned quickly. Already, their surprise assault at the Battle for the Yu'Soong Cluster had resulted in 80 losses for the Covenant fleet that had jumped in unprepared. The Unggoy had spent their time wisely.

Slout walked down the command deck that was built ideally for creatures three times his size. Slout, though new, did not view this as a problem; after all, since there was triple or more the volume they actually used, that meant all the more space devoted towards Unggoy shock troopers.

As one might gather from the above statement, Slout was very aggressive for a mere Unggoy, as well as new at the job.

He walked down to the sensor pod. "Hey, sensors! How's the project going down in the docks?" His voice, like always, sounded like he had consumed a little too much methane in his breathing exercises that afternoon.

"They're doing fine as of the last checkup."

"SIR!" Slout yipped. "Call me sir."

"Uh…yes sir." The sensor crew snickered.

Slout walked away. He had high hopes for the little experiment being conducted down in Hangar Bay 12. He had never liked the Big People, who always pushed the Unggoy around so much. He was an ardent supporter of the Revolution, and frankly this project if it succeeded could turn the tides.

He said to the air in general, "I'm going to Bay 12. Let me know if anything happens, stupidheads."

The Unggoy ignored him, though a few snickers arose from Sensors again

Hangar Bay 12 was a mess. Unggoy were running around, helping assemble large rather unwieldy pieces of metal plating, welding the circuitry inside of them, then assembling the sheets together for a hopeful finished product.

They could never have done it without the Engineers, Slout thought yet again. They hadn't really picked a side, but the Engineers, always high in number where Unggoy were due to the Unggoy's tendency to break things for Engineers to repair, had come in very handy. Unggoy command figures had started setting up places where the Engineers would be comfortable and might reproduce more, seeing to their comfort what little they needed of it.

In return, the Engineers helped upgrade and produce new devices of war for the Unggoy to use against the overwhelmingly more numerous Covenant. This had resulted in new stuff already, the "shiny t'ings" that Command figures loved to gibber about. A new modified plasma torpedo, encased in a metal shell with a guidance systems and very fast engines on them, were being produced everywhere now. The Unggoy ships that had been captured (via the expedient use of purging Covenant cruiser's atmo in all compartments, then stealing the ship when everybody was dead) had been tinkered with, and the Engineers had modified Covenant plasma torpedoes, improving and refining the programming for certain magnetic focusing-thingys so that now they fired a plasma beam instead of a ball, over 20 times more effective in damage and how it cooled down.

And, now, the Unggoy ships could see much better in the "shadow" of Slipspace than their Covenant dudes, another little tinkering result. They could open Slipspace portals inside opposing ships as a result, which would tear them apart due to the energy release and g-stresses everywhere. A bloody mess, that's what it was, and Slout, the commander, wouldn't have it any other way. He smiled at the thought of the carnage released upon his foes, and then he could gnaw on their toes. Hey that rhymed; Slout stored that away for future readings in the methane crèche-pens to his children.

They had a few models clunking around the Hangar Bay floor now. The idea had been originally for an exoskeleton for Unggoy that would lift Unggoy off the ground and allow them to travel as fast as an Elite could, and then the Engineers had gotten hold of the idea. Together both were creating different suit ideas that were being tested now. Some had long legs, and thin armor, running around fast but tripping frequently. Others were shortish, squat things that had thick slabs of metal hanging off the sides in place of future metal armor that could be placed better. They were slow, but not tripping. They were three-legs, four-legs, even a six-leg model running around, but the two-leg seemed the best, as Unggoy had become used to in the service of their Sangheili overlords.

"How's it going, supervisor?" He tripped over metal.

The supervisor, a tall lanky Unggoy, stared at him with very oversized goggles. He slid them off his face, then blinked slowly. "Good, sir! Things smashing and bashing here! I'm thinking model 117 is running probably the best out of all of them."

Slout looked closer at the demonstration sheets, then at the contestants. Yes, 117 was tallish, but had good medium-sized sheets of metal and other goodies on it, and somebody had placed a Sangheili shield generator on it, giving it even better protection. Engineers monitored from the sides, and at Slout's request 117 was selected, the others were slowly moved off the field, then swarms of Engineers came in with parts, circuits, and little doo-hickeys, and Slout watched as they began to improve 117 in a matter of minutes.

He turned to the supervisor. "Give them five hours, then send the specs for whatever they's finally made to Unggoy Command. Those little schmucks" (ironic, considering how short he was) "are going to love this!"

A few days later, Slout was in heaven. They loved Model 117, and were starting to produce it with the Engineers helping modify planet and space-based factories down on their end. Soon, after a few trial runs in combat, the Model 117-G would be sent into battle, extending the survivability of the average Grunt by a very wide margin.

Currently, his mission was to coordinate with other strike leaders and send a surprise force into Covenant territory. So soon after the Battle for the Yu'Soong Cluster, the Sengheili probably wouldn't expect any aggressive moves made. But they had finally rallied around an Unggoy _jhour'in_ leader faster than expected, a tall Unggoy named Freem, and they were to commence immediately.

Slout's ship the _Uuknar's Revenge_ had been selected to be the command ship for the strike force that Freem _jhour'in_ would lead. Slout's ship was a Covenant Assault Carrier, one of the largest ships around, and it was crewed all around by Unggoy, that and a few Engineers. It was an ideal choice for the assault, and had room to spare for Freem and his personnel.

Freem _jhour'in_ was making a grand speech, well, as grand as a squeaky-voice alien could get. "Today, fellow Unggoyians, we're going to kick some Big People! Too long have they refused to tie our shoes, too long have they not—oh, sorry, shopping list. Ahem. We're going to blow up some fuel depots and food storage areas within a few hours. I've been given codes that according to Intelligence back home are the current codes for Sangheili patrols in that area, so it will give us a chance to sneak in and position for ideal maximums of casualties." The other Unggoy chippered and yipped; all too many of them remembered the heels of their oppressors, and how they wished for revenge!

"Today, Sllus-Nav depots, tomorrow, Jirahln!"


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Six, Part One

Sllus-Nav Munitions Depot, Arnok System

Hour of Declination, Third Declination

The Arbiter arrived at the Sllus-Nav on a Seraph fighter he had commandeered. It had taken a while for Arbiter, who's name had once been Yu'Songalee, to truly grasp the enormity of the Arbiter's powers now available to him. He could, within reason, suborn any fighting force he saw fit to his cause, from a single Kig-Yar as an assistant, to entire Covenant armadas. He held the jurisdiction of life and death over any of the warriors that fought under his command. He could order the obliteration of entire planets, possibly even entire systems and be held totally unaccountable for his actions.

However, that was often the price for the tasks an Arbiter must undergo, he recalled.

The role of the Arbiter, and its origins, had been lost to the mists of time. It was pre-Covenant, when the Sangheili were a race of proud warrior-clans spread amongst the stars, competing for honor and occasionally territory or resources. When a younger, less advanced race was found, the Sangheili would preserve their worlds and remain unnoticed by them, and the best ones would be used as hunting grounds, where an Elite could test his honor and mettle amongst other species' warriors. With the war against the Prophets and their reconciliation, however, the Covenant forbade such activities.

It was presumed that the Arbiter became, before the Prophet's intervention, a method amongst Elite warriors, so that they could set aside their honor and accomplish whatever task needed to be done. It was a general rank in society, a state of being that an Elite could don and un-don with elaborate ritual. With the formation of the Covenant, there had been a brief period of turmoil where Sangheili society had been fundamentally changed. The Arbiter became the Holy Vanguard of the Great Journey, its previous social functions amongst the Elites reforming into the holy warrior, an avatar of the Covenant's righteous fury.

Sllus-Nav was an ideal place from which to begin reforming the serried Covenant ranks. Aside from its material importance, which was considerable, and its high numbers of trained technicians and shipyards, which was also hefty, it also boasted considerable internal defenses, which could repel any Unggoy attack that could conceivably be launched. Those defenses could be used to bolster the morale of the warriors who fled, and in addition his status as Arbiter would cause additional unity.

He was met at the docking bay by a Sangheili honor guard and the Sengheili commander of the station. His Seraph's engines cooling and spinning down, the Arbiter exited his craft and grasped the arm of fellow blood-brother. "How goes things here, Sub-Commander?"

"Preparations have begun as you instructed on the way in, Holy One." The group proceeded to walk from the hangar bay to the Bridge. "Our sensors have begun recalibrating, and efforts have begun at the repair bays to shore up the most damaged ships."

"How many losses?"

"Over 9000, sir, with more on the way each day. Whoever commanded the Fleet surely is dead for this travesty."

"I can assure you, Sub-Commander, that the people responsible for this debacle will be dealt with in due time. And some already have," with a slight chuckle underneath his breath. It felt…odd…to speak of himself as one who was dead. Or, really, his previous self.

He looked around at the Bridge. "I need the collated reports of the past 17 hours of operation, Sub-Commander."

"Already on their way, sir. The readouts will appear on the central command console."

"Very good. Carry on."

"Yes, sir." His honor guard left, and the Arbiter was left to his own musings and thoughts. It was important to strike back quickly, and hard, before the Unggoy had recovered from their own losses and dip in morale. While they ran when their high leaders died, they would return with sharp fangs, as they had so often under the Sangheili's leadership. "Vermin," he growled under his breath. It went against the natural order of things, to do what the Unggoy had done. No other Covenant member had ever rebelled as flamboyantly as the Unggoy had, that and remained alive for this long.

His analysis of the information collated for his reading was interrupted by a red flare in the communications sections. "Communications, what is transpiring?" the Arbiter commanded.

He received broken messages, static, and screams. "Out systems defenses—" "Overrun!" "Somebody get a message through to command!"

The Arbiter pounded his console in fury. The Unggoy had come, much quicker than expected. He sounded the alert. "All warriors to their posts! The Unggoy are upon us! All warriors return to their ships! Defense command, initiate your orders on my signal!"

He turned to the console again. He memorized the route to his Seraph, and left.

The Arbiter tuned into the battle grid. "Shipmaster Yu'Longfree, report!"

"We're almost loaded for departure, holy Arbiter. I've sent the fleet ahead to the outer grids. It seems the Unggoy have developed a method to open Slipspace portals in the middle of our ships! We've suffered heavy casualties so far, and the Unggoy have come out swinging."

"Very well. They're here to destroy the station, as well as eradicate the survivors. You must hold them off in a defensive front until I can get the station ready to receive them."

"Yes, holy Arbiter. Shipmaster Yu out."

The Arbiter continued. The base was a hive of activity. Species of all kinds in the Covenant rushed to their posts. Weapons systems were prepared, and the outer stations in orbit above the main one prepped weapons. He went to the station's command armory and selected a plasma carbine and a pair of Brute spikers, for use on the Unggoy's exposed methane tanks. The hilt of his plasma sword was tucked in its magnetic cradle in the curve of his back. He checked it, ignited it, then deactivated it and returned it. He selected a few plasma grenades, adhered them to their harness, then left.

He had a feeling he knew what was going to happen before it did. "Holy Arbiter!" Shipmaster Yu roared over the comm. Net. "Unggoy boarding craft are pouring out of the Slipspace portals they're opening! We're taking many of them down, but we won't be able to hit all of them!"

"Very well! Do what you can, and hold off their capital ships until I can arrive to your location!" The Arbiter switched to the station's local frequencies. "Station warriors, Unggoy boarding craft inbound. Prepare for combat!"

Chapter Six, Part Two

The Arbiter met with the master of Security onboard the station, a Jiralhanae named Hades. He had dispersed security across the station to the bays and weak points in the stations hull where it had been determined they were most likely to break through. The station was large in volume, but not so much that each team couldn't rush to another's aid.

Hades was large like all Jiralhanae, and smelled like festering garbage. To an Elite's sensitive sense of smell, this rendered an already strained relationship with the Brutes, as they were sometimes called, almost intolerable. The Arbiter silently thanked the air-filters in his armored suit as he approached the mammoth creature. "Security master." He nodded in recognition.

Hades nodded in return. The Jiralhanae, though smelly, certainly weren't stupid, and this situation warrant a certain level of politeness and cooperation in the conflict ahead. "Arbiter." And after all, he was also under the Arbiter's command, though how Hades felt about this was unknown.

A Kig-Yar squawked as it looked at its sensor grid. "Twenty seconds."

Hades rumbled in laughter. "So, they are stupid enough to come through a hatch. This will be fun."

The Arbiter didn't disagree, though he was internally grateful for any slip-up the enemy might make.

The red lights turned blue, and the Arbiter and his retinue of troops in front of him were exposed to the sight of over thirty Unggoy…with Fuel Rod Guns. Pointed right at them.

The Arbiter dove to his left back down the passage, and felt more than saw the wave of green actinic death wash over him. Then, blackness.

The Unggoy troops cheered as they saw their enemies vaporize in a shower of light and radiation. The corridor ahead partially slagged, but Covenant metal was sturdy, and could take the abuse. They avoided the red-hot metal patches, and spread through the hatch quickly, covering every route that ran to them.

Slout stutted through the hatchway to personally oversee the capture and acquisition of this station. They knew the schematics, and knew the Bridge wasn't too far off. It was their goal to vent the hangar bays, resulting in the massive, still-loaded cargo containers to be spaced. A second group of Unggoy cargo transports, accompanied by a few warships, would Slipspace in, grab the loot, then Slipspace out. Then the station and everything in it, would be slagged to molten debris.

So far, it was going perfectly to plan.

"Commander! Hatchway is secured."

"Good." Slout preened. "Make your way to the Bridge. Make sure nothing lives, and make sure you vent the entire station after the bays are done."

"Yes, sir!" They trotted down the hallway. A few seconds alter partly around a bend, he heard a shriek of pure terror, then "Sir! Come here!" He approached, then stared at what he saw. A Sangheili, covered in an unusual form of armor… "An Arbiter," he sighed. And…he knelt down and touched the middle of his back, where the Sangheili's pulse was. Very, very faint. "He's out, boys. Get him on the boat, and throw him in the brig."

"But, sir! This is…an Arbiter! A Holy Warrior!" His troops were stuttering in their fear. "Shouldn't we kill him?"

Slout frowned, and bared his teeth in dissatisfaction. "No. He be a good prize for the Freem _jhour'in_, and he'll get prize! Now move!"

The squad continued, and the Unggoy left behind picked up the massive Sangheili slowly, and brought him onboard the Phantom, which soon left for the Uuk'Nar's Revenge to present their acclaimed prize. No one noticed, in the rush, out of the mound of charred bodies by the hatch a small mound moving by the hatch, and while everybody was busy with the Arbiter, a furry clawed hand clutching a small, device. The moving mound of fur disappeared, only ripples showing where he was, and the ripples moved, ever so agonizingly, into the Phantom.

Freem _jhour'in_ was busy coordinating the Unggoy frontal attack on the Covenant's outer defense stations. He had requested that all ships in his command, all 230 of them, be loaded with the new really-fast plasma missiles, but only half had been filled to his request before they had to leave. All ships had been modified for the plasma beams as well, which would put a definitive clinker in the Big People's plans.

First through the shattered wreckage of Covenant ships out of the Slipspace portals that had opened up inside of them, were the ships with the missiles. They spewed them out, and began gutting the nearest Covenant anything with their incandescent beams of fury. Within seconds, they had cleared a large are of space through which the _jhour'in_'s ships could pass into normal space, and they emerged virtually in the center of their defensive fleet.

His groups split into two, one with 190 ships and the other with 40. The larger force turned and smashed right into the large Covenant counter-attack that was heading towards them. Sporadic fire from the outer stations soon thickened as the outer stations received more accurate targeting coordinates and improved their rate of fire. Plasma torpedoes streaked across space and smashed full-on into the Unggoy frontal shields, but plasma beams lanced out, slicing through shields like they weren't even there. Over 23 vessels, including one Assault Carrier, drifted through space cut in half at the middle, before containment in the reactors failed and space was littered with wreckage and metal shards moving at virtually c.

The smaller group, while the larger group distracted most of the Covenant vessels, proceeded to micro-jump in-system, to get closer to the main station. These ships spewed fighters and boarding craft by the thousands, which screamed forth from their hangars. The main station was very large, and covered in hundreds of scaled-up fuel rod guns and thick plasma batteries. The closer the vessels got, space became saturated with plasma fire everywhere, a blue wall of fire. Unggoy fighters screamed in, Phantoms and Banshees flying in and striking holes in the network of guns, but with horrific casualties, flesh and metal tearing, boiling, and gone into blackness.

At last, the main station had been breached. First one, then two, then twelve, then many, many more craft successfully burned, blasted, or landed into the station. Heavy fire met their efforts, but special teams of Unggoy, equipped with massive Fuel Rod guns and plasma cannons, fired back, punching holes in the defenses.

When the signal came the Unggoy retreated. The number of Covenant forces kept trickling, and was soon to turn into a flood. The strike teams pulled back, and then, just when the Covenant though they had won, the Unggoy opened the main Hangar Bays, sending massive cargo containers into space and living being who in the room at the time, which were many. Then, as if for a final insult, the entire stations was opened. Every living being froze, Hunter worms shriveling up in the cold, Engineers collapsing and occasionally exploding in gore, Brute, Elites and Jackals grasping their equivalent of a throat, then keeling over dead. The Unggoy team donned space suits left their armor on the deck, then left through the hatch they came in. Twenty seconds later, the escorts to the troop transports, which had successfully loaded up all of the containers into their cavernous holds, fired, slagging and destroying the station.

That was the signal to regroup and leave. The main force of 230 ships, now reduced to less than half that, turned fired their massive plasma missiles at the outer stations, then left. Behind them they left, again, shattered Covenant fleets, slagged stations, uncountable losses in every conceivable category of war, and a shattered sector defense that it would take the Covenant entirely too long to exploit, during which time the Unggoy would ravage half the galaxy.

And, in a ship fleeing triumphantly from the battlefield, two warriors, defeated, began to wake up.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Seven

The Arbiter swam through a disassociated stream of consciousness, bits and pieces of memory, feeling, and feelings flying through him, around him, and over him. It was very confusing; no up or down, or anything for that matter.

He stayed like that right until he felt the bucket of water poured on his face.

He jerked, then his eyes opened as he realized he couldn't move a muscle. But he could feel, and he felt that his armor was still on him, that he lying on some sort of platform or table, and that his body ached in every place imaginable. Next step, open the eyes; he forced them too, as they didn't want to. Slowly, he saw a very bright light drop in intensity, then swing away. The pain in his mind slightly faded, and he saw.

In his previous life he had been a Shipmaster. As such, he knew every little detail, every unique facet about every Covenant ship that is in use now or has ever been used. And he was in the medical center of an Assault Carrier, he knew that for sure.

And he still couldn't move. He couldn't get even his muscles to twitch.

"Ah Arbiter," a high-pitched squeaky voice exclaimed to his left. Suddenly, he could move his neck; he turned, and saw an Unggoy dressing in short blue robes, waving its little claws at him in greeting. "Greetings."

"Why can I not move?" His voice rumbled like distant thunder.

"It's a new device we've come up with, with the help of our Engineer friends. It paralyzes you, but we can control what parts are paralyzed, what you can feel and not feel."

"Why am I here, and who are you?"

"I'm answering the questions here, Big Sangheili stupid man!" the creature waved a clawed fist at him. "I'm Freem _jhour'in_, and these are my People!" The Unggoy behind him squealed and threw their hands in the air, dancing around. Freem silenced them with a wave. "What I'm wondering is, why are you here?"

"You have proven a sufficient annoyance to the Prophets to have invoked me."

"We've heard the stories." Freem waved his hand casually. "But we Unggoy not afraid of you! Even the Big Bad Arbiter can't move now!"

Then, he could move. The Arbiter lunged off the table, then roared with pain as he smashed into an invisible barrier around him. Freem chuckled. "Oh yeah, a force field thingy, another little doohickey we've got. Face it Arbiter, for now you ours!"

"And for what? The second you drop this field, I'll proceed to wreak havoc on this ship, and kill you all, starting with you." His voice was filled with cold dire threat.

"Go ahead and try. Even you can't take on 25,000 of the People!"

"I'll take my chances." Freem moved to leave, and the Arbiter roared, "You should have killed me when you had the chance, you miserable vermin!"

The doors closed behind Freem, and the light flickered and went off.

Freem gathered his raiments, the few they were, and walked down the dimmed corridors of the ship. He walked to the bridge, deep in thought. Their victory had been immense, but the Covenant would inevitably strike back hard, and soon. The inclusion of the Arbiter into his plans really threw them for a loop. The Covenant was truly prepared to destroy them.

"Bridge."

"Yes, _jhour'in_?"

"Have our forces rendezvous at the nearest system from here. We're exposed."

"Yes holy one. Message has been sent."

"Good. Freem out."

Within a few minutes, he had made his way to the bridge. He called up a map of the sector. "Guider."

"Yes, _jhour'in_?"

"See this sector, its largely uninhabited. Any reason why?"

"We had not yet expanded to this area when the Big People caught up to us and enslaved us, jhour'in. Other than that, it is perfectly inhabitable territory. Many systems rich in methane that we could live on."

"Send expeditions there. We need to spread our bearings, and establish bases that the Covenant don't know about, and will never find. Alter our heading towards one of these systems."

"Yes _jhour'in_."

Several Hours of Declination later

The _Uuk'Nar's Revenge_ swept in-system with sensors scanning, shields up, and weapons fully prepped. Freem _jhour'in_ was on the Bridge supervising efforts to load the equipment they would need for his idea. So far they were several light-years from Unggoy territory, and many years from Covenant territory in particular.

In the medical bay, the Arbiter lay nursing his wounds. He had used the med-scanner built into his armor to determine the severity of his wounds, but either they had been patched up or they had been marginal, as he was close to his normal peak health. And they had taken his weapons, which left the Arbiter feeling almost naked. But, he thought, that does not make one any less of a warrior. He began examining the floor within his bubble, the table, and everything associated with the two. He discovered something glowing very faintly, on a spectrum that he would have seen or felt without his suit. _Stupid vermin_, he snarled. He grabbed the offending object, squeezed viciously, and a strength that could warp metal plating collapsed the device with a tinkle of broken glass. The Arbiter moved, and felt no field blocking his path. The Arbiter engaged his cloaking device and vanished.

In the duct-work above the med-bay, Hades grunted as he saw the Arbiter vanish. He had been preparing to rescue the Sangheili filth, but the scaly thing had proven more clever and observant than he had thought he would. He dropped into the med-bay, disengaged his cloak, and gathered what he would need to take care of his wounds. His fur was falling out in large clumps, his bones ached, and his flesh underneath his fur was seeping blood. He took several doses of anti-radiation medication, used several devices, and on top of it trimmed his charred, blood-soaked fur. He then crawled into the ductwork again, placing the grille back, leaving the room empty.

The officer stationed to guard the ship's armory sighed, then sucked some more on a portable food-nipple. Guard duty was boring. He never got to relieve his boredom, as a ripple broke his neck in one quick jerk, overrode the security codes to the armory's door, then dragged the body inside.

The Arbiter came out loaded for bear. Though these weapons were primarily meant for Unggoy, there was still a small selection of non-Unggoy weapons, just in case possibly. The Arbiter selected a plasma carbine that was beaten up but fully charged, two Brute spikers which clipped onto the magnetic holsters on his hips, and, in a corner almost unnoticed, a plasma sword. The Arbiter grinned, mandibles open in joy, as he grabbed the hilt, tested the sword on a plasma rifle which was sliced in half, then grabbed a belt of grenades. He took one grenade and, tinkering with the circuitry, put it on a delayed detonation. He placed it in the middle of the grenade rack, then fled the armory, intent on reaching the Bridge.

Unnoticed by the fleeing Arbiter, Hades smashed the door in, then grabbed a belt of grenades also. Grabbing a Brute spiker and a grenade launcher, Hades left the room, chuckling maniacally. He had seen the Arbiter's trap. He fled to the Hangar Bay, and waited. Around 20 minutes later he heard a tremendous explosion, and smiled. Invisible with his cloaking generator, he began commandeering a Phantom for immediate departure. He noticed how several items in the weapons readout had been modified, then raised his eyes. There were Grunts in the hangar bay, then a door opened, and the Arbiter appeared, clutching a panic-stricken Freem _jhour'in_.

The Brute leaned out from the open Phantom's doors, shot several Unggoy with his spiker, then roared, "Arbiter! Grab your scaly hide and get in!"

The Arbiter jumped in surprise. He could have sworn that Hades had died at the hatch on the station, but if he hadn't…so much the better, two is always better than one, even if it is a Brute. He dragged the squealing _jhour'in_ onto the Phantom, who's doors closed just as hordes of Fuel Rod equipped grunts poured into the hangar bay to attack them.

Hades smiled, then hit the weapons selection that would normally be the mounted plasma cannon array. Instead beams of scathing-white energy lanced out, targeting each grunt simultaneously. The beam leapt from the first charred carcass, then turned on another, then another, all within less than one seconds. Within ten, all of the Grunts had died in the room, and severe damage to the bay was obvious also.

The Arbiter shouter, "GO!" Hades blasted the main field generators, and with a squeal of metal the field keeping the bay enclosed from space vanished.

The Phantom fled as explosions wracked the _Uuk'Nar's Revenge_, flame blossoming into the black as they fled further in-system. The Arbiter watched with amazement, then turned his attention on the Freem. He grabbed the chip in his neck, yanked, then grunted with pain as it ripped out, little claws having burrowed into his muscles. He took it and jammed it inside Freem's thorax, Freem screaming as the device latched through his bony coating, and into his soft organs. "That's a start, vermin. Stop squealing!" he roared as Freem fell in shock. "That isn't the last you've had of me."

He walked to the cockpit where Hades was evading weapons fire competently. The fleet that had accompanied the _Uuk'Nar's Revenge_, which now listed in space, was firing everything they had at them, but Hades was flying with unusually consummate skill. "Flown Phantoms before?" he asked, though it seemed obvious.

"A few times, then I transferred," Hades grunted.

"Ah." He sat next to him in the co-pilot's seat, but his skills weren't necessary here yet. They sat in silence for the next few minutes, the Arbiter calming his churning mind. Freem, aside from being something that the Arbiter would normally consider as excrement from his boots, for some reason really irritated him. In a few minutes, the Arbiter had calmed, and asked quietly, "So, how did you escape?"

Hades didn't answer, merely pointed with one hand quickly to the device on his belt harness.

"A cloaking generator! And one used by Elites, at that!" The Arbiter was truly astonished. Modern cloaking generators were hard to come by, and even the Arbiter's cloaking device was several thousand years old, and rather antiquated at this point. And, while very useful, risking his life any number of times as it always seemed to cut out just when he didn't need it to.

Speaking of which…a thought occurred to the Arbiter, a small, forbidden thought that would never have occurred to him, aside from these circumstances. "Hades, may I examine you cloak?" A grunt was Hades' only reply, and the Arbiter quickly grabbed the oval gem and switched it with the oval gem in his armor, peeling up a metal plate and switching quickly. He then gave his to Hades, putting it back like he had never switched in the first place.

The Arbiter went to the back, and, hidden from Freem's gaze, activated the newer cloak. He stared where his hand would be, and if anything the slight that was normally there was much less than before. He took his gauntleted hand and smashed it into the wall, but only pain in his hand registered, and the cloak stayed up, and it stayed up regardless of what he did to it.

The Arbiter smiled.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Eight

The Arbiter returned to the cockpit. The Phantom was not bucking and moving nearly as much, and the ship's sensors were a steady wall of rock. "We're hiding?"

"Yes. Damn them, we're hiding," the Brute snarled. "There were too many ships."

"A good plan. Actually Hades, I predict that within…say, an Hour of Declination, they will turn and depart."

"Why do you say, Arbiter? Another cunning ploy?"

"Sort of. Those cargo containers that the Grunts are taking back to their worlds are not loaded with the foods and supplies they think they are. One of my first orders was to take out what suitable volume would be necessary and replace that volume with a warhead of the Greater Fire."

"And when those containers are opened back at their world, they…I see." Hade's eyes were shaded, indicative of heavy thought for a Brute.

"What say you, Hades?" the Arbiter inquired. This Brute was unusual for one of his race, a Brute that thought, and with good foresight, with that cloaking device of his.

"We need to hijack one of their ships."

"Why?"

"We have no Slipspace drive on this vessel. The Unggoy are not yet that clever to have miniaturized one, it seems. We must hijack a ship if we are not to be stranded alone in this system, with the recall back to their worlds."

"Hmm…what do you propose?"

"I'm not sure. I don't exactly do this sort of devious thinking for a living," Hades said with a small chuckle. "But you do."

The implication was clear. "Well, since they have deployed Phantoms and Seraphs after us per standard procedure, we could try and blend in. Land in the hangar bay as directed, then purge the atmosphere like the Unggoy did to the station."

"They WHAT?" Hades roared.

"I downloaded the battle into my suit's computers. They spaced the station using strike teams that took the bridge environmental controls, then blasted it to vapor once the teams left. A double insult, and one that would be suitable to use against them for reply."

"Unggoy scum, yes it would be!" Hades flung his hand towards the back of the Phantom. "What do you propose we do with him?"

"I'm not sure. It was primarily to get me a reprieve from death, and I want to exact vengeance with it, but he is technically not necessary any more."

"His death would leave the Unggoy fainting in fear, even as they fled to their worlds, a double blow to their spirit."

"And we could kill him while broadcasting to all ships." The Arbiter's mandibles widened in glee. "A good ploy. But we do need to keep him alive until then."

"Alive, but not broken. I presume you have words for that creature."

"Yes I do, but not as the Arbiter." He took his ornately-armored helmet off, placing it on the console. "Arbiters do not do what I'm about to. The fury in my spirit demands it." He left toward the back.

Hades roared, "While you're doing that, ask him good questions, and get some use out of his split hide!"

Many minutes later, the Arbiter returned, with blood on his hands. "He is intact."

"Well enough. My comm. Net is chattering in Unggoy, they are close."

The Arbiter re-donned the helm, the symbol of his authority. "Good. They'll be turning back soon."

"They are now."

"Turn into the tide, Hades. Mask our approach with suitable distractions."

The Phantom slowly out from behind the asteroid, then fired one missile, which Hades had discovered was loaded onboard. The missile sped away from them towards the inner systems, uninhabitable worlds to the Sangheili and Jiralhanae, but suitable perhaps for Unggoy colonies. If the Unggoy ever returned with followers, their methane atmospheres would have ignited and consumed their worlds, leaving them useless.

"Fighter wings turning off, checking out the missile's drive. I'm broadcasting our tale of woe with the accursed Arbiter and how he escaped our grasp." Hades chuckled.

"Good. They should believe us. Link up to their net and follow the Phantoms in."

"Course set." Hades stood up, his fur rippling with effort, and he retreated to the back to retrieve his weapons.

The _Uuk'Nar's Revenge_ had detonated it seemed. His tinkering with the engine controls had blown the rear of the ship, and shattered the rest into jagged chunks of metal. It seems the other Unggoy ships, as they approached, had suffered some damage, atmosphere streaming from their flanks like wounded beasts. A suitable revenge, the Arbiter's mind growled.

With the few minutes he possessed without a need to commit to action, the Arbiter leaned back against the wall, staring into the depths of the Phantom's holds. He could see Hades rearranging gear in the back and speaking in low tones to the prisoner. _The last time I have seen a Phantom's walls_, the Arbiter mused, _was when I was still a Shipmaster_. It seemed like ages ago, when in fact the Arbiter had only been for about two weeks of declination.

And it had been even longer since he had led squads of troops into battle, back when he wore the blue armor of a young fire-hearted warrior, with the emblem of his house-clan proudly on his helm. The years had been kind to his previous incarnation; while he had possessed no family as most Sangheili do, but he had possessed the skills of an elite swordsman, which had derived him plenty of mates to spread his genes further. The Arbiter cradled the baton of the plasma sword, waving it in arcs in front of him, musing on the past, and how everything had changed.

Hades growled at Kreem _jhour'in_, who was still huddled in silent fear in the back hold. Where Elite squads would stand and declare their undying vows, Kreem cowered in fear, his hands bound, and blood trickling down his mouth. His eyes were wide in fear. "You desecrate what little honor the Sangheili have, Unggoy, by cowering in their meditation-stools such," he snarled in disgust. "You would think a _jhour'in_ would possess greater reserves of strength in spirit if not in body."

Kreem's eyes narrowed. "Far be this for you to say, Jiralhanae brute. You are not so small, or weak, as the Unggoy are. Our spirit is in the bonds of communal unity, of cooperation in great feats."

Hades roared in laughter. A _jhour'in_ saying thus was amusing, especially with his tinny little squeaky voice. "Better to be strong in one than with the many. The pack is for mutual defense, yes, but one needs be strong in body as well, when his litter-mates are far away, and one's reserves need be tapped alone."

"Boy a smart Brute, thought I would never see the day of declination," Kreem sneered.

He stopped when Hades roared, grabbed his harness, and dragged his skinny frame up the wall. His strength caused Kreem to begin choking, waving his claws in panic. Hades' voice was far quieter than before, and much more threatening. "Brutes are far stronger than any suspect, little Unggoy _phat_," and Hades spit with the Brute insult. "And we know when to conceal it, like any warrior does." He dropped Kreem, the little Unggoy falling seven feet to the floor, emitting a squeal of pain. "One day, all will know the strength of the Jiralhanae. But your strength is fading, _jhour'in_ with no clan, and you might well pray for deliverance before this day is done. For your people, and mine."

"Already have been," Kreem's voice quavered. He had seen death in the flesh, and was much afraid.

"Good. You are coming with us. Make a sound when we dock, and what pitiful stretch remains of your life will be that much shorter." Hades hefted his grenade launcher, which had been propped on the weapons rack nearby, and stalked with heavy steps to the Phantom's consoles.

The Phantom was on an automated approach run into the port hangar bay, the closest to the bridge. Hades had piloted exceptionally well; no Unggoy had suspected thus far that the Phantom that was inbound was in fact not theirs. Freem had been knocked unconscious for the duration; the Arbiter was to take the lead into the bowels of the Unggoy-modified Covenant cruiser, where Hades would follow and carry Freem. They carried all their weapons, and their cloaks were activated.

They felt the gentle rock of the Phantom docking via magnetic clamps, and the Arbiter whispered into his helm, "go." The two invisible figures walked out of the Phantom's open rear bay doors, while puzzled Unggoy technicians stood around looking inward. The two snuck by without a problem, then they turned left. Ascending multiple floors of the bay, the Arbiter reached a ventilation shaft and, checking nobody was nearby, he flared his plasma sword into being cutting through the thick metal bolts holding the cover in place. The two entered, and Hades replaced the hole.

For the next two hours they spent their time evading work crews, wandering Engineers, and the occasional patrol. Stealth was their number one priority, at least until they reached the Bridge. Finally, they had reached the doors, and stood against the walls until a passing crewmember opened the doors, and they slipped in behind them. There were 20 Unggoy on the Bridge, plus an Engineer tinkering with panels on the floor. Hades and the Arbiter positioned themselves, then began firing. Within five seconds every Unggoy had been shot in the head, leaving no trace or alarm activated.

Hades dropped Freem onto the floor with a thud. "Gods, he was annoying."

The Arbiter looked at him. "He was unconscious."

"Yes, but they smell."

The Arbiter shrugged. "Access shipwide security programs. Lock the doors down." With over four entrances to the Bridge, he didn't want any Unggoy left out of the trap.

"Done."

"I'm sending a sub-sonic frequency across the ship, telling the Engineers to go to the armory and wait there. Once the Engineers have left, I'll turn on the atmospheric tanks, and the air will sucked out of every room except for here and the armory."

"Won't they be surprised." Another rumble of laughter from Hades' chest.

"I imagine so. The last of the Engineers have entered." With a flick of a hand, he sealed the Armory's doors as well. Then he flicked on the purge command to the tanks. Across the ship, thousands of Unggoy dropped to their knees, clawing at the methane which was being sucked out of the air, depriving them of their gases needed for life. Instead, the tanks converted the methane to oxygen and other gases, that the Arbiter and Hades needed to breathe. The methane was purged into space, taking the corpses with it out of the holes in the ships that had not yet been repaired. _That would minimize concern from the other ships about debris and bodies venting_, the Arbiter thought.

"Pumping oxygen reserves into the ship, and other gases. The ship is ours. Wire all commands through here."

"Done. Arbiter, we're receiving messages from the Unggoy ships. They want to know what's happening."

"We can do that." The Arbiter grabbed Freem, and him and Hades stood in front of the comm display. "Broadcast." The screen flickered and remained a tranquil blue, but the Arbiter knew that he was being watched attentively. "To the Unggoy fleet. Here is your Freem _jhour'in_." He shook the Unggoy savagely, until the creature woke up. "We have your rat in our hands, now."

He paused, looked at Freem, then turned back to the display. "I have a message for your ships to take back to your precious High Command: This is what happens when the Covenant between all is violated, and once-members of holy oaths become traitors. This is the fate that awaits you and the rest of you _phat_ race."

And he took his plasma sword, ignited it, and gutted Freem in one swift stroke.

His guts spilled all down the front of the _jhour'in_'s robes, now dyed in his blue blood. The Arbiter stood with a sneer on his face, then dropped the Freem onto the floor like a sack of meat. "Thus is done to all traitors."

With a flick of his hand, Hades disconnected the broadcast. Messages vowing vengeance poured from the other ships, which began to turn to open fire. "Hades, activate Slipspace drives, on a random course. Get us out of here!"

The Covenant CCS-class Battlecruiser sped away in a white flash of light, and the Unggoy, burning fury in their little but numerous frames, sped after them.


	10. Chapter 10

Convergence

"What is the name of this ship?"

"The _Hope of Ages_, Arbiter. The Unggoy are not very original with names."

"True. Take us out of Slipspace, and tell me where we are."

The _Hope of Ages_ flashed into existence in the outer borders of a system no Sangheili or Jiralhanae had ever seen. "Unknown system, Arbiter. Multiple planets in the inner system, and are within habitable tolerances. I estimate that we're about two minutes ahead of our pursuers."

"Set course to the inner system. Perhaps we can hide. I would rather not lead an Unggoy armada with blood on their teeth straight to a Covenant base."

"True…Arbiter, I'm detecting energy signatures from the inner system!"

"How many?"

"Hundreds, no, thousands! There's someone here already!"

"I doubt the Unggoy had a hand in this, but if not them, who?"

Harvest, ODC _Hera_

0700 hours

March 01, 2327

"Send out our hello to them, comms. Let's see how they respond."

"Aye, sir."

This was the moment that man has waited for throughout all of human history. Commander Morales, at that moment, could feel viscerally the eons of history pressing down on him, urging him to really not screw up now.

"Sir, we're detecting weapons signatures being exchanged between all of the ships and one that is slightly ahead of them. Looks like the first one is trying to run away from without much success."

This made Morales' decision twice as hard. With information as to who was who, and more importantly their reasons for shooting at each other, Morales morally could not intervene. "What sort of weapons?"

"High-energy plasma, funneled into a beam via long-range magnetic projection. They also seem to possess shields like ours, but much less powerful according to our readings."

"What's the range?"

"Over twenty light-minutes out and counting. Neither side seems to have paid any attention to our broadcast."

"Continue repeating the message. Order the first CAP patrols out. Establish a patrol about 7 light-minutes out from us. That'll give them an idea of where we don't them heading, and maybe they'll start paying attention."

"Sir, we're getting a broadcast from one of their ships."

"Does it say anything meaningful?"

"Not yet; our translating algorithms are working on it. Should be done in a few minutes."

"Good."

A few minutes later, Morales heard a deep voice. "I am the Arbiter, and am in control of the ship ahead of the main group. The main group is composed of rebel vessels that have broken away from the Covenant and are waging a civil war against us. We ask for refuge and assistance in dealing with the Unggoy, if you understand this message at all."

"The message repeats, sir."

"Can we send a message in their language back?"

"Now, yes, sir."

"Send this: Attention incoming vessel, prepare to be boarded by our troops. Any non-compliance with these orders and you will be put down with force. We will discuss the situation with these "Unggoy" separately. Fly past our fighter patrols, and we will do the rest. Thank you."

"Broadcast this to the "Unggoy" ships: "Attention foreign vessels, the being known as the Arbiter has claimed protection from your forces, and desires our assistance in dealing with you. Respond to this message, or we will defend our borders with force!"


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Nine, Part One

CAP patrol

7 light-minutes out from ODC _Hera_

March 01, 2327

The obsidian-black fighters streaked through space at .4c, a rather slow speed for them but perfectly fine regarding the commander's orders. Their patrol and ceaseless swooping about right in front of the Unggoy fleet had done little to deter them; their speed and course were unaltered. "Hera, the alien's course and speed are unaltered. The Arbiter and his vessel have been let past our patrols without incident."

"We read you, Lieutenant. Orders of engagement are still as ordered for now."

"Very well, Hera. Alpha One out."

Unggoy Cruiser _Hierophant_

15 light-minutes out from ODC _Hera_

"Commander, the alien station has repeated their message." The Unggoy at the communications array were frightened even more out of their wits than otherwise. "They say this is their last time they're going to talk, then they are opening fire."

The commander was a very small Unggoy named Payay. Payay's heart was burning with the need to finish off the Arbiter's captured Unggoy vessel, which was leaking from several gashes on their hull from his fleet's weapons fire. Since the abominable death of Freem _jhour'in_ he had been the next in command, and had risen to the occasion.

And now his heart warred with him. The need to destroy the now-avowed enemy of the Unggoy race was great, but this new enemy posed a possible obstacle.

His heart won, to the detriment of all. "Continue on full speed. Channel auxiliary power to the shields. We'll take their fire, and exchange it for our hatred. Anything to see that Arbiter dead!"

112 of the Unggoy's most powerful capital ships descended in full force upon the Arbiter, not heeding the warnings of the unknown enemy that has spoken to them.

ODC _Hera_

Same time

"All right, they have refused to even respond back. Order the fighters to let fly the anti-ship rounds."

"Yes sir."

The 36 fighters that represented the UNSC's fighter CAP patrol turned their ebony wings to the Unggoy ships. Each fighter carried two anti-ship missiles under their wings, each with a 20-gigaton antimatter warhead. The missiles fired and rapidly accelerated to .74c, then impacted square on the frontal shields of the lead Unggoy ships. The warheads of the Greater Fire burned bright, stripping shields away and searing away metal alloys, flesh, and all virtues. The frontal halves of over 23 Unggoy ships flashed into pure actinic vapor, their rear halves melted into charred slag.

The remaining ships continued and fired their remaining plasma missiles at the UNSC ships. Travelling at over .36c these missiles were the fastest weapons the Covenant had yet possessed by way of long-range weapons, but the UNSC's infusion of Fifth Imperium technology served them well. The massive point defense net of the _Hera _flashed into action, destroying over half the warheads, and the cap patrol which was returning closer to the base destroyed more. But over 37 missiles streaked in, smashing the _Hera_'s shields to barely a flicker of their former strength. The Bridge rocked to the impacts, throwing many into steel bulkheads at speeds that would have been fatal to them were it not for their biotechnic enhancements.

Morales' only command was, "Fire."

The capital-ship launchers of the _Hera_ opened into action for the first time, as well as the first salvo of the _Hera_'s MAC cannon. Massive 250-ton tungsten projectiles flashed into relativistic speeds, punching right through the lead Covenant ship and grazing the two behind it, gutting the first and detonating its reactors in a flash and carving massive gouges into the other two's hulls, leaving almost all decks exposed to vacuum. The hyper-missiles launched by the _Hera_ streaked in even before the slug had reached its target, Greater Fires detonating INSIDE the Unggoy ships as the missiles came out of hyperspace inside the ships.

The only response the Unggoy offered was to vanish in a blip of light…and reappear right over the _Hera_. Close-range plasma beams lanced out into the reeling space station, her burgeoning shields collapsing again and hull serrated under the titanic onslaught. Later, it would be a wonder to both Covenant and Unggoy analysts that the station's hull took so long to vaporize as it did, sometimes even taking as long as seventeen hits to fully slag.

On the _Hera_'s Bridge, Commander Morales and his crew fought their controls to keep their station alive. The Unggoy's attack was devastating, their plasma wreaking more damage upon the ODC's frame than perceived possible. Morales' last act, before the bridge vanished in actinic flames, was to activate the permit the ODC's automated networks to take action.

The _Hera_ did not die without fighting back. All missile launchers fired at virtually point-blank range, streaking across the hundreds of kilometers separating them from the Unggoy and thousands of multi-gigaton missiles impacting in full. In the resulting firestorm, the Unggoy fleet vanished, replaced by an expanding miasma of white-hot plasma, rippling outward in a ball of hellfire that wreaked further damage upon the _Hera_'s hull and orbital generators. _Hera_ tilted as it began to fall into Harvest's atmosphere.

The Arbiter and Hades sat in awe at the Greater Fires unleashed. "This is madness," Hades growled. "The Unggoy have been driven mad!"

"So it would seem."

"Should we render assistance to the aliens?"

The Arbiter looked askance at Hades. A Jiralhanae that thought to aid others, how…novel. "If they ask, yes. They have proven to be credible allies, and most definitely would be worthy foes to fight." The _Hope of Ages_ was currently in orbit of the alien's world, their life-support systems and others being repaired by the Engineers at full speed. Their ship was a wreck; without the protection of their shields or viable armor, they would shot out of the skies without even a blow being fired. "Any time they could buy us to get our shields and weapons back online is vital, though it pains me to stay out of the fight."

"Me as well. Credible foes are hard to find, these days."

"Agreed," the Arbiter chuckled.

Then the Unggoy jumped, next to Hera. They watched in horror as the Unggoy performed a suicidal jump, CLOSER to the enemies' guns. "Never mind, that," the Arbiter snarled. "Get us into range, and provide some cover for our allies!"

"Too late. The station is…" then Hades silenced himself. The _Hera_ was in flames, was dying. Their allies had defeated the Unggoy ships, but at a terrible cost.

"Get us into range with our tractor beams, and provide double the power to the shields. Perhaps we save their station, and what survivors remain, from a fiery death," the Arbiter said quietly.

Chapter Nine, Part Two

The _Braveheart_ was in Slipspace, its captain reading the Slipspace courier probe that they had received. _Braveheart_ was one of the new _Peregrine_-class assault carriers, and had left the ODC _Hera_ about an hour ago for a training mission a dozen light-years away. Such a message from Morales, after they had departed, was an unusual circumstance. But, as Captain Cirales noticed, the message itself had been most unusual itself.

"Sir, we're about two minutes from Slipspace emergence."

"Good, about damn time. Anything unusual on the sub-comms?"

"Nothing yet, though the amount of ambient Cherenkov radiation is spiking gradually in places."

"Sir, we're ready."

"Good. Activate all weapons and point-defense systems, just in case. Combat Alert Alpha."

"Combat Alert Alpha, aye."

The _Braveheart_ emerged in a flash of white light, into a storm of white flame. "What the hell is this?"

"Plasma storm, but its dissipating! Detecting weapons residue from a blast; Commander, it's standard UNSC weapons!"

"Get us out of it! Contact the _Hera_!"

"Sir, look…" and Cirales jerked his head up.

The Hera was plummeting into Harvest, and…there was a ship there. One of alien ships from the Hera's message, , but it was beaten up bad, rents in the hull and a leaky drive from what Cirales could tell from his biotechnic interface. It was close to the Hera. "Those bastards. All weapons, target enemy vessel! Launch alert fighters!"

"Countermand!"

Cirales turned to his SIC, Commander Harper. "Pray tell why I shouldn't override your order, Harper! These bastards just damn near glassed UNSC property! A blatant declaration of warfare, if I ever saw one!"

"Sir, look. The alien ship is trying to pull the _Hera_ OUT into orbit, not attacking. Look," and Harper forwarded the sensor data to him. "Whoever they are, they aren't attacking now."

Cirales looked at the data. "Hmm. Thanks for blocking my order, Harper."

"That's what I'm here for, sir."

Cirales turned to Navigation. "Get us into tractor beam range, and assist the alien vessel. Send out a standard greeting, see if they respond."

"Sir, they're sending US a message! And in English!"

"Any visual?"

"Receiving now, Captain."

"Put them on." Cirales couldn't be surprised any more.

An image of presumably the alien commander appeared on-screen. It was a reptilian-like creature, encased in form-fitting armor. Strange glyphs coated his armor, and the alien snout ended with two mandibles, which were moving in speech. "I am the Arbiter of the Covenant. I am a Sangheili of the First, and Holy Warrior of the Hierarchs. I am grateful for the assistance."

"Um, thanks," Cirales replied. "I am Captain Thomas Cirales, of the United Nations Space Command, commanding the _Braveheart_. The UNSC is the power in this area of space. I have to ask, though, by what means are communicating in our language?"

"We possess language-cipher technology as well. The station's transmissions to us provided enough data on your language for us to do this."

"Ah." Cirales paused, as if not sure what to ask next.

"I propose that we both get your station to a safer orbit. Afterwards, we should talk."

"A good idea, Arbiter. We'll do what we can on our end."

"As will we. Your warriors fought with honor today. I am transmitting our recordings of the battle with the Unggoy to you now. You should know how the UNSC faces foes."

Cirales looked at the Hera, her molten hull and radioactive interior. They had put up a hell of a fight. He turned back to the alien's image, his eyes slightly watery in knowledge, but his voice steady. "We know already this, Arbiter. But we appreciate your data. Thank you."

"We shall speak later." And the Arbiter closed the link on his end.

Cirales turned to his chair, and sat heavily on it. "Harper, prepare salvage crews. Tell them to check for survivors, once we've steadied the _Hera_'s bearings."

"Yes sir."

Cirales closed his eyes, thinking of his friend on that savaged hulk of metal outside. "Morales, you damn fool," he whispered.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Ten, Part One

Captain Sarah Kerrigan watched from her seat on the Bridge as the _Titan's Lament_ enter orbit over Harvest. The massive vessel, the first ship of the line and currently the oldest ship in service, had acquired a near-legendary reputation throughout Battle Fleet. As a result, when the contact with the Covenant and Unggoy had occurred so dramatically her ship, which had been a few sectors away at the time but nearby, had been called in.

"Dahak, what is the status of Harvest?"

_Nothing much has changed since the attack by the Unggoy ships. Hera is still unsalvageable, but the few survivors that have been recovered number approximately 67 personnel, and most will make it. The ones closer to the exterior of the hull died from immense radiation poisoning, the current survivors only alive due to their being close to the center of the installation_.

"Frankly I'm surprised that _Hera_ even maintained her grav generators during the fall. Should have fallen apart."

_The Fifth Imperium was well known for over-engineering, commander. Projected Achuultani advances in the several centuries since the destruction of the Main Fleet were unknown, hence a certain level of paranoia with the construction of future designs._

"True. Communications, send word that we're here."

"Done, Commander. We're receiving orbital coordinates, and a message from Admiral Cirales. He wishes you to join him on the surface."

"Tell him I'll be there shortly. Dahak, keep the ship good. Commander Correnon, you have the conn."

_Yes ma'am_. "Aye, ma'am."

Captain Sarah Kerrigan stepped onto the transmit platform on the bridge, and flashed into the central command headquarters being constructed on Harvest, a temporary site located about 40 kilometers from the town of Trismonde. She stepped off the platform, allowing a squad of Marines to embark and flash to their destination. Admiral Cirales was there to meet her. She saluted sharply.

Cirales saluted back. "At ease, Captain Kerrigan."

"Yes, sir. Congratulations on your promotion, sir."

They turned, Kerrigan following Cirales' lanky stride, and walked towards the committee facilities. "Thank you, Captain. Don't know if I really deserve it, though."

"Commander Harper found out, but you're the one who chose not to fire anyway. There was no indication that Harper's analysis of the data was correct."

"True." Cirales smiled. "I wish Morales hadn't bought the boat, though, for me to get it."

"I…heard, sir. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Well it's what you might expect when your half-brother dies." They walked in silence for a while. "Still," he said, "I've been put in charge of talks with the Arbiter and his people. That's something I guess."

"And another congratulations." Kerrigan was smiling.

"Thanks," Cirales smiled back. "We're here."

They entered the facility. A wide-open expanse behind the opening doors, then a series of elevators later. Soon they were underground multiple floors, then exited and entered a large underground meeting room. Hastily carved out from the bedrock, the conference room had guards everywhere and sensors scanning the entire facility at virtually every point. Above ground, multiple anti-air and ground security weapons batteries provided additional protection against the Unggoy if they chose to return. The additional ships in orbit rounded out the temporary security procedures.

Vice Admiral Wallace stood at the podium. At their entrance, he smiled. "Ah, Admiral Cirales, Captain Kerrigan. If you would, please." They both sat down. In additional seats sat the captains of the ships in orbit or their chosen representatives. Wallace spoke. "I'll make this brief. The situation is critical now, ladies and gentlemen. The Unggoy which attacked us were destroyed, yet Slipspace emissions were detected in the outer system. A few of their cruisers escaped, and so we have to expect the worst.

"The _Hera_'s remains are being slowly carved up, to be re-melted and separated into its individual alloys and such. A new ODC will be created using those alloys with the orbital construction module in orbit, it's name being the _Hera 2_. Made from the same materials which suffered from the fires of war, the _Hera_ _2_ will be a functional memorial in spirit to those that will never depart from its halls." All heads bowed in silent reverence, including Wallace's, Cirales', and Kerrigan's. Cirales felt tears trickling down his cheeks and cursed his weakness.

Wallace rumbled into the speaker-unit, his voice bringing those in requiem quietly from their reveries. "While this is going on, additional orbital construction units are being brought in from other close-by worlds. Harvest's schedule is being accelerated by three-fold, due to the Unggoy's knowledge of its location. Other worlds within a 30 light-year radius are having their schedules for defense orbitals accelerated also, just in case.

"The temporary measure, for now, is the task force in orbit. However, once we have begun construction in earnest, then Task Force 12 will begin scouting operations in this sector. Their mission will be to find any Unggoy installations and worlds that are close by. In this effort, our efforts have been much accelerated in this regard by a being we all know." Wallace paused. "For this part in the debate, I relinquish the floor to the Arbiter."

The Arbiter, clad in his armor with a purple ceremonial robe with obsidian-black edges slung over his frame, strode forth onto what the humans called a stage. When he had discovered the human's plans for going to war against the Unggoy, the Arbiter had insisted on providing all maps of the traditional Unggoy worlds in the Covenant's databanks as soon as possible. Though not officially sanctioned by the Hierarchs, the Arbiter knew this gesture would prove to be vital in the way of expanding communications with these people.

These people were strange, but their weapons for now were what concerned him. He had watched the recordings of the battle since it had ended over and over, sometimes with Hades (who was on his way back to the nearest Covenant defensive position with the Arbiter's message), sometimes alone. The speed and strength of the human's weapons was astounding. They were possessed of a Greatest Fire that the Arbiter had never seen before, and he had spent many restless nights pondering the ramifications of this. For one, the Covenant would need to make allies with these humans, and fast. The Unggoy will find it difficult to not engage in hostilities now that they have attacked a human installation so violently, but the Covenant needed to get access to the human's weapons, to level their capabilities against the Unggoy filth in the civil war.

And so, he was speaking to the leaders of these humans…or at least, of their military caste. Their culture, also, confused the Arbiter. As a holy warrior, he had seen many of the facets of the cultures in the Covenant. Some races, like the Lekgolo, didn't seem to even have a culture, but that could be attributed to the fact that they were a mass of worms, when things came down to it. But these humans had the most bizarre jumble of cultural attributes that the Arbiter had ever seen. He had reviewed what he could of their history that they would allow, and their world had been fragmented for so long into innumerable facets that it had been slightly less mysterious, their myriad ways.

Their ships, while enormously powerful, were of a design that was brutally utilitarian. No aesthetics had seemed to radiate into their designs, aside from those pleasing forms that still served a practical purpose. One side of the Arbiter, the ruthless tactician and warrior, could see the merits in keeping aesthetic styles sparse, but the poet, the cultivated side saw it as a waste. Covenant ships were smooth, graceful vessels, reminding their crew through beauty what they were fighting for. Beauty, in itself, could be a practical purpose.

Now, though, he was on the podium to speak to the humans in command of their task force. He knew he was being both honored and trusted, though the Arbiter also knew about the squad of Marines stationed around the room in hidden corners with all guns pointed at him. It was fair enough; one does let in any _vermak_ into another's den-ward without some form of verification of good intent. If anything, it showed how thoroughly professional the humans were.

"Thank you, general Wallace," the Arbiter rumbled in his language. His suit, by now, possessed their full language and syntax protocols, and would translate both ways. "I have fought against the Unggoy myself in many battles, and have seen both their occasional cowardice, and the levels of treachery they can reach."

"The Unggoy used to be part of the Covenant, years ago. Within the past 23 years, they have split off from the Covenant under a _jhour'in_, one of their religious leaders. This one has never been seen, but he has arisen to considerable influence very rapidly. The Unggoy plotted, and in time prepared traps. They killed the lot of non-Unggoy races on their worlds aside from Engineers, and have acquired independence of their former worlds and colonies.

"Both Unggoy and the Engineers, to compensate for the Covenant's still-superior numbers in battle, have been experimenting on and attempting to improve Forerunner technology. I have released to you humans earlier who the Forerunners were, and what they mean to the Covenant; this level of heresy for our government is one that will not have us stop until they are all dead, their world burned. Until then, however, I am forced to admit that the Unggoy have been partially successful in this.

"This is why I am seeking an alliance with the…UNSC on terms of an alliance, or at least mutual cooperation in hunting down and hurting the Unggoy where they can be hurt most. I have sent Hades, the Jiralhanae, back to our nearest outpost to confirm this with my superiors, who as of yet do not know of your existence. However, as Arbiter I have the authority to do what I am doing on behalf of what I feel is best the Covenant to win.

"And, there are good reasons why this would be beneficial for you, as well. The Unggoy are the closest extension of the Covenant to your lands, so far as I know. Once their ships get back, which will probably be soon from what I know of their Slipspace drives, the Unggoy will have no choice but to continue the assault. You have dealt them a major blow, destroying the former Freem _jhour'in_'s fleet as you have, and they will not forgive this."

The Arbiter strode off of the podium, to the sound of mixed applause, and a lot of worried face in the crowd.

Chapter Ten, Part Two

Onboard the _Hope of Ages_

17th Quatrain of Declination, 3rd Declination

Hades leaned back in his seat, scrounged from the Unggoy filth and cobbled together with consummate expertise by the Engineers. None of the Unggoy chairs fit him, and Hades was damned if he would stand on the entire multi-day trip back home. He had set the course home, set the sensors to alert him if anything unusual occurred, and left. He had much thinking to do.

For a Jiralhanae this was an unusual proclivity. Indeed, throughout the Covenant, Jiralhanae were the brunt of jokes everywhere, about how they were little better than the very heretics and bests they slaughtered on the battlefield with so much glee. This was erroneous; as Hades had once said to Freem _jhour'in_, Brutes bided their time.

And Hades was doing so now. If anything, the miraculous destruction of the Unggoy fleet in front of hi s very eyes had shaken him to the core far more than it had the Arbiter's. To a Brute's way of thinking, this blatant use of overwhelming firepower, used so casually, said the same things, but led to different conclusions. To the Arbiter, this had led to being cautious, watching, speaking and negotiating with these creatures who called themselves _hew-mons_, or something like that. Hades had spent as little time associating with these pasty-skinned, virtually hairless, smelly folk. When the Arbiter had offered this assignment back home, Hades had lunged at the opportunity.

This had left him plenty of time to think, and Hades had come to some very disturbing conclusions. This new race must be absorbed into the Covenant like all before them. The Unggoy were an aberration and would rightly be put into their proper place after the conflict was over, wherever that place may be. These _hew-mons_…with such power, they would a valuable ally to the Covenant, though it was that very power that worried Hades. As most Jiralhanae, Hades was a devout believer of the Great Journey. It had given their species a reason, a purpose beyond the mindless fighting which had nearly consumed them all before the Prophets came. He believed in the edicts of the Great Journey with a righteous fury that sometimes startled even him, and indeed, it was that very flame which had powered his ascension throughout the years.

Hades had seen the Luminary, the device onboard the _Hope of Ages_ that had the ability to tell Forerunner devices. It had told him many things, that these _hew-mons_ were reading as Forerunner artifacts, a fact that would both please and horrify the Hierarchs. No race had ever read as-Forerunner-blessed, only machinery, ships, and devices. This was unprecedented.

And…the _hew-mons_, to the Luminary, were corrupted. Their Forerunner natures, proper would have the Luminary screaming in a fit of digital bliis, but a shadow of…impurity…had obscured most of their origins. Hades was more disturbed about this shadow that obscured the _hew-mon_'s true nature. It reeked to him of abomination.

Hades looked into his right hand. In it, cradled as delicately as a Brute could, lay the chip that the Arbiter had given him to give to the Hierarchs. It held his special blessing, and would give Hades access to the most venerable leaders of the Covenant through their considerable security networks. Hades had not told the Arbiter of the Luminary's report; indeed, he had disconnected the device and hidden it, only putting it back until he had launched alone. The Arbiter would stop his plans, if he knew; while the Sangheili were acknowledged to be excellent warriors and tacticians by the Brutes, they lacked the intensity of faith that carried Jiralhanae through their lives. Thus, however excellent of a warrior and strategist the Arbiter was, in Hades' eyes he could never be trusted with such valuable information.

Hades leaned back, and closed his eyes. When he reached the Inner Sanctum, all would be revealed, as it should be.

CIC, UNSC _Electra_-class Cruiser _Grendel_

In Slipspace

Captain Grissom reread his orders, not that he needed to. He had been ordered to tail the Covenant ship, and track them back to their forward bases. It had been predicted that on full stealth the Covenant ship couldn't track them or even know of their existence, which was just as well. God knows what they were getting into.

His second set of orders, though, was bizarre. He had been ordered to scan on full frequencies, including active scanning. This had come straight from High Command, otherwise he would have immediately called up his superior officers and asked what the hell was going on. The Covenant were sure to detect a full-spectrum gravitonic burst! His officers had assured him on the few inquiries he had made, so he was still stuck with the job.

The ability to track and follow ships in Slipspace had come about only about 4 months ago, and few ships had the ability. Even so, they had to get to a distance near the enemy vessel—over 4000 kilometers—that disturbed Captain Grissom. That wasn't knife-fighting range, that was claws and teeth range. "Any sign that the Covenant ship is going to leave soon?"

"There are fluctuations in their drive matrices, Captain. We think they're getting ready to, at least."

"Good. Prepare to exit back to normal space, stealth on full. All hands to combat stations, Marines to their posts."

The screen saver on the view screen faded, replaced by the aft end of the Covenant ship. It was glowing a soft white which increased as they watched. Beyond lay the flickering ember filaments of Slipspace. Captain Grissom rose from his seat and activated the holographic panels on the command dais. A version of the Covenant ship appeared, translucent; it flashed white, and Navigation said, "We're exiting Slipspace behind them in their wake, sir."

"Good." Might as well get some use out of their close proximity to each other.

Disguised by the Slipspace fluctuations as they exited, the _Grendel_ came out into a system teeming with activity. Surrounding their exit-point were hundreds of ships, ranging from small frigates to huge ships even larger than their Electra-class cruisers. Grissom grimaced. "Any sign they detect us?"

"No, sir. They're sweeping space, but our stealth is up without any glitches."

"Combat Control, activate Dahak program, contingency Alpha-Two."

_Greetings Captain Grissom. I am Dahak Sub-Unit Tertiary Thirty-Three Thousand, Six Hundred. How may I help you?_

"Dahak, I need you to stay up and hook into all sensor and tactical systems. Scan the system at full range on the frequencies that Command sent us."

_Proceeding sir, one minute_. Dahak programs were copies of the original Dahak, which was still located on the original parasite warship _Retribution's Embrace_. By now, millions of copies of Dahak were floating around in the UNSC, including a copy on every UNSC starship. Standard protocol dictated leaving the Dahak program inactive until needed, and most captains followed policy aside for a few who were monitored by scientists back home every time to monitor the AI's condition for long-term instabilities. Grissom needed Dahak to run the frequencies, as the amount of data he needed to process quickly would be stupendous, and needed to be done quickly, a task that even biotechnic-enhanced people couldn't do that quickly.

_Sir, I've completed the scan. No sign of anomalous data_.

"Save scanned sensor data, Dahak. The techs back home want to go through it, for some reason."

_Yes sir_.

"Sensors, I want full multi-frequency scanning on all fronts. Command wants the Covenant mapped out, and the Covenant ship followed back to its home base. We're going to do just that."

Chapter Ten, Part Three

High Charity, Council Chambers

3rd Quatrain of Declination, 4th Declination, Hour of Mourning

"There was only one station?"

Hades kneeled, his bass voice rumbling outward to fill the chamber. The room was filled with the species of all the Covenant. The responsibility for how the next minutes occurred lay heavily on him, and made it difficult to speak. "Yes, lords. They called it…the _Hera_."

"Why was it not destroyed by the rest of the Unggoy fleet?" the Arbiter of Severance raved.

"It fought back, as our ship moved away for needed repairs."

"When you saw the Unggoy fleet, what were they doing?"

"They were closing into attack range, sir, firing those infernal plasma missiles of theirs. Sir," he hastily amended.

The Prophet of Reconciliation smiled, his dais floating slightly in front of both Severance and Inclusion. "And what, pray tell, happened next, Hades?"

"The Hera fired missiles of their own, with a possession of the Greater Fires. It was like nothing I have ever seen, the Unggoy ships leading and the flanks…simply disappeared, sir, vanished into broiling vapor and gases."

The council chambers erupted with shouting and exclamations of disbelief. Inclusion snarled. "There will be order in this council!"

Reconciliation smiled, his eyes firmly fixed on Hades'. "And what happened next?"

Hades felt possessed, words being dragged out of grasp. "Prophets…the Unggoy performed a tactical Slipspace jump, right on top of the _Hera_."

A Sangheili Counselor rose, and received permission to speak. "What was the range of the jump?"

"Less than half a light-minute, Counselor."

The chamber erupted into chaos again. "Impossible!" No ship can jump at such short range!"

Hades growled. "These Unggoy did, sirs. The _Hope of Ages_' computer records will confirm this." He nodded towards the Prophets.

Reconciliation smiled. "I hold trust with your words, Hades. They opened fire at close range, then?"

"Yes. The Hera withstood an ungodly amount of plasma fire. As former security chief of the Sluss-Nav depot, I had heard from ship masters and veterans of the Unggoy, but I have never heard of a Covenant ship withstanding as much pure plasma fire as this one did. The Arbiter agreed, and he has seen much by the way of Unggoy."

"The Arbiter stayed with these…humans?" Severance quietly asked.

"Yes. He seeks to possibly gain an alliance, or at least mutual cooperation in assaulting Unggoy positions. His plans are on this data chip, sirs, and he wished for myself to take it to you." Hades raised his hand, Sangheili guards moving forward, scanning the chip, then nodding and taking it from him.

"Very well. We will peruse the Arbiter's readings." The Three moved to back away, the discussion it seemed clearly finished.

"Noble Hierarchs!" Hades spoke before he could control himself. As the Three turned to face him with cool expressions, he steeled his innards. "Sire, I have seen something, however, that the Arbiter has not. The Luminary spoke to me."

The Council chambers dropped in volume, as everybody silenced themselves to hear. Reconciliation saw, and scowled. "Hades, come. We will speak of this in private quarters."

They departed the Chambers, Hades feeling very out of place amidst the Three and their Elite guard. Reconciliation spoke first, as they walked down empty scarlet and azure halls. "Continue, Hades, with what you heard."

Hades inhaled. "The Luminary spoke of the _hew-mons_ as Forerunner, sir, their very bodies. The planet Harvest was awash in signals."

The Three gasped in shock, though Reconciliation less than the others. Severance immediately said, "You have proof of this?"

"Yes. I have the Luminary records, and the Luminary onboard the _Hope of Ages_."

"Anything else for today, Hades?"

Hades hesitated, as a last burst of an alien feeling, conscience, washed over him. If he spoke, he might very well condemn an entire race death. He put aside that inside of him angrily; he had his duty. "Sir, though they are Forerunner of a kind, the readings showed them…corrupted. A shadow over the signal. They do not shine as ought in a Luminary."

There was no shock this time, but the hall dropped in temperature, it seemed, until the very air was to freeze and shatter. "Corrupted?" Inclusion spoke.

"That seems the best word to use, Prophets. A shadow lies over the signal, and I don't know what that means." Hades was being honest, as the _phat_ was out of the bag now, in the open light of day.

Reconciliation's open friendly look was gone. His face, wrinkled as it was, gave no clue to the roiling thoughts underneath. Finally, he shuddered and spoke. "We will speak of this separately. Guard, return Hades to the Council Chambers. Hades, speak of this to no one, not even the Arbiter. You were right to have not told him."

Hades bent, growling his loyalty. As he turned to go, the Sangheili and his banner at his side, he wondered if the right actions had been performed this day.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Eleven

Jhupoo

Space split, and a small flotilla of near-crippled vessels pulled into orbit around the Unggoy world of Jhupoo. Messages of warning were transmitted from Jhupoo's orbital defenses, and the slow leaking ships answered back. When their response was heard, the Unggoy grieved.

The fleet of Freem _jhour'in_, desiccated, thought lost after such a long time away, had finally come home.

Payay limped slowly onto the courtyard from the Phantom's open doors. Under his arm lay a crutch, short and stocky to help him balance. His ship had barely survived the blast of the Greater Fires from the strange new enemy that had been encountered, and Payay regretted every minute of his arrogance and rage.

The courtyard was covered in his fellow Unggoy. Being tribal and tending to bond in groups, the deaths of so many had led to mass grieving across Jhupoo for the dead. The leaders of the people, the _jhour'in_ were here to meet him, in this time of troubles.

Ghar _jhour'in_ approached, and lay his clawed digits delicately on Payay's shoulders. His hard skin quivered. "Trouble," he said quietly.

"Yes, trouble, _jhour'in_. The new enemy laid waste, my men dead."

"Yes." Payay began his slow painful journey across the courtyard, but Ghar _jhour'in_'s hand stayed his movement. "But, it is you who have brought this on us. You have brought a new Enemy on us, aside from the Big Uglies which were bad enough." Ghar sighed. "we will speak indoors, away from the grieving. They do not need to hear this."

Payay nodded mutely, the two walking slowly indoors to the low flat building. For now, this is where Payay would stay, until he had recovered from his grievous wounds at the least. "So, how does the High _jhour'in_ fare?"

Ghar shrugged. "He grieves, as do we all inside." Ghar closed the door quietly, the Unggoy outside prostrating and beating the ground in silence. Payay saw them from the window; it hurt his heart, how he was not with them. Ghar approached. "Payay, step away. You must atone for what you have done."

"How might I do that, _jhour'in_?" Payay sighed, walked away from the window. Ghar closed it, then the other two windows. They were alone in a box. "Tell me what I must do. So many of the People are dead, because of me."

"You saw fire and hatred towards the Arbiter, Payay. We have seen the recordings; the Arbiter committed a truly heinous crime, the slaying of a _jhour'in_. It is no wonder you reacted the way you did. But…the consequences of your words and actions have to be met, now." Ghar paced in front of Payay; Payay felt envious of his movement, his lack of injuries. "It has been deemed acceptable as penance if you commit to a task."

"What task is this, _jhour'in_?"

Ghar shuffled, then opened the oval door and left the hut. He returned with a small bag, and pulled out a sheaf of documents on Covenant-issue memory plastic. "You are to resign your commission immediately, Payay."

"But- But-"

"But nothing! Having resigned, you will be granted a ship. A small old ship, a corvette of many years, but one we have retrofitted to be faster and more powerful than it looks. You will then go to the Tyranngil, where you will pretend to be a merchant trader. You will do your job and do it expertly, otherwise you will probably die. Right before you leave, you are to plant these devices in any communications hub you can get access to." Ghar pulled out of the bag a thin wafer of crystal, thin, transparent, and virtually untraceable. "Put it in a decent hiding place, and nobody should be able to spot it until it is too late."

"What is it?"

"Payay, you're no longer Shipmaster. You have no access to this information, that's what the Higher _jhour'in_ has declared." Ghar sort of snuffed the last word, as if the Higher _jhour'in_'s word was a high edict. Which it was. The _jhour'in_ had been the religious leaders of the Unggoy for thousands of years. Under them were Deacons and under them the masses of the People. Their teachings were those of the Edict, which had been passed down for just as long as the _jhour'in_ had been around and had carried their teachings in it.

"Fine, fine. Doen't mean I have to like it," Payay muttered.

"This is understandable. When do you think you will leave."

A fixed comment, then, not a question. "Give me three days," Payay said finally after a pause. "I need to heal, and prepare by way of supplies. I will do my best for the High _jhour'in_."

Ghar bowed. "That is all any of the People can do, in the end."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Twelve

Titan

Above Harvest

The Arbiter knelt, awash in signals in the holographic projection chamber. Next to him stood Commander Kerrigan and Fleet Admiral Wallace, observing his reactions. "This truly is an amazing place," the Arbiter whispered. "It resembles much of the halls of the Forerunners, yet is much different in cadence, in the rhythm of its workings."

"Our technology is advanced as yours it seems, Arbiter," Wallace agreed. "Though I do have to wonder, who are these "Forerunners" you speak of?"

"Our gods," the Arbiter spoke. "Long ago, the Forerunners were real, and lived and breathed, as do all of us. They were overcome by a Great Darkness, in some texts referred to as the Flood. They built a series of Sacred Rings, and used them to begin the Great Journey, where they left this plane and became true gods. They are with us still, in spirit."

"Forerunners." Kerrigan's mouth rolled the word around her mouth. It somehow…felt right. "Did they leave anything of theirs behind? Cities, technology?"

"Yes they did. In fact, that is what Covenant technology is primarily based off of, as we seek to emulate our Gods in every way possible."

The three left the chamber, and continued onwards. The Arbiter's suspicions about the UNSC's technology had been confirmed correct long ago, and seeing more was just a luxury. This warship combined Covenant aesthetics with Forerunner technology, but in a totally different way. It was very pleasant on the eyes, certainly, but strange.

The Arbiter did not notice as Wallace gave a subtle glance at Kerrigan, who merely nodded. They both knew the sheer value of what the Arbiter had just accidentally diverged. "Sir, if I have your permission there is a cargo shipment that I must see to."

"Permission granted, Commander. Good loading."

"Thank you, sir. Arbiter." With a polite nod, she turned and left the two, moving quickly to the Bridge. She sat in the command chair. "Get me a direct line to Command."

_Connecting…line established, Commander._

"Thank you Dahak. This is Commander Kerrigan, reporting a Class-One Omega. Command respond."

"What have you got, Commander?"

"Sir, we've just received intel from our guest on a group of advanced aliens called the Forerunners…"

Admiral Wallace excused himself from the Arbiter, ordering an ensign who happened to walk by to escort the Arbiter to wherever he requested. Then the nervous ensign was left with the tall alien. "Do you have a meditation chamber on board this vessel?" the Arbiter inquired.

"Um, we have a chapel, and a small garden in hydroponics, which is sometimes used for that," the ensign said. She was slightly intimidated by this huge creature, especially encased in its armor like that.

The Arbiter paused. "I do not know of this "chapel." Please show me to the garden."

The two soon came upon the garden, and the ensign's words were if anything an understatement. A sanctuary for exotic plants and animals, the garden was also a place for the crew to walk through and relax in during their off-duty hours. The Arbiter marveled at the variety of life around him, and he was pleased. "My thanks. You may stand guard at the entrance; I wish to be alone."

"Yes, sir." The ensign moved to the door, but positioned herself to keep an eye on her guest.

The Arbiter ignored her, moving through the life, mulling over his past decisions. He had informally joined into an alliance with these humans, and had even gone so far as to give them star charts and intelligence on Unggoy territory. It was within an Arbiter's privileges, he knew, but he wondered if he was morally right. The Covenant could fight and defeat the Unggoy, it would probably take longer than normal.

The alien warrior shook his head, nudging the leaves with his snout. No, he determined; this was a matter of honor, and these humans possessed it, just as any Sangheili possessed the blood-honor of their clans. The Unggoy had attacked them, and thus the…UNSC…deserved their chance at vengeance. The Arbiter snarled; he had made up his mind. He was not in the wrong.

He left the thick foliage, motioning to the ensign. "I wish to see space."

"Um, there's an observation bay, if you'd like to look."

"Yes." Within minutes and the use of a grav-lift they were there, and this time the Arbiter merely continued on to the windows. The ensign backed off like last time. The Arbiter spent his time staring out the thick portholes at the stars, and especially at the fleet of massive warships that surrounded them. He traced their lines, noting the different configurations of their lines, their different classes, though the Arbiter had no clue what their differences were.

He noticed a flare of light out beyond their flotilla, and could barely make out the distant outlines of Covenant ships from their Slipspace emergences, a few dozen ships. The Arbiter was pleased; the Brute had gotten back to Covenant space, and here were the first speakers and diplomats to speak with the humans. He was surprised it had taken this long, though.

Which belied his surprise when the sky lit with fire, plasma torpedoes and beams lashing out at mid-range, smashing into the surprised human ships and smoting upon their hulls with full force. The attack continued, and ships began dying, hulls rupturing and warheads exploding from the titanic sustained bombardment. The Arbiter, in his horror, could see hundreds more Slipspace flashes, thousands, until it seemed as all of the sky was filled with Covenant ships.

But the humans were clearly preparing to fight back. Though they had lost a few ships, the Arbiter could see the ships turning into the fire with missiles and beams ready for firing. The dim blue flicker of shield systems came online, and the Arbiter's view of death was abated as no more ships died. Then…the fire. Dozens of beams lashed out, and where they smote ships died. Covenant ships, ripped, sliced into dozens of pieces, drifted. All of space was filled with the wreckage of metal ships, and corpses.

He heard a click behind him. The ensign was holding a massive pistol to his head, one which no doubt even it could kill him at such close range. "You are under our custody, Arbiter, until we know what's going on!"

The intercom flared. "Arbiter to the Bridge. Repeat, Arbiter to the Bridge."

The Ensign swallowed, tears trickling down her face. She had seen the death too. "In front of me." The Arbiter complied, hands behind him so she could see they were empty. She guided him to a specific grav-tube, and they shot up, their destination the Bridge.

Fleet Admiral Wallace was there waiting for him, as well as a squad of armored Marines, in some form of body-encompassing armored suits, like the ones Sangheili possess. The friendly grin on the Admiral's face was gone, replaced by suspicion and hatred, but not necessarily towards him, the Arbiter could tell. The ensign nudged him towards them, and the Arbiter was quickly relieved of his weapons, including his ceremonial plasma sword, but left him his armor. When they were done Wallace gestured towards thee combat hologram floating in the center of the Bridge, showing the carnage. Kerrigan was busy directing combat maneuvers, but she gave the Arbiter a suspicious glance before continuing. "Care to tell me what the hell's going on?" Wallace snarled.

The Arbiter shook his head. "I do not know, Ship Master Wallace. You saw me give the information to Hades, and compose that said information. I do not know why they are doing this."

"Admiral, we're receiving a transmission…in English."

"Put it up, let's hear it." Wallace motioned the Arbiter forward, and he complied, followed by the massive rifles of the alert Marines.

The transmission was visual. An image of the Prophet of Reconciliation floated above the CIC, and behind him stood… "Hades," the Arbiter sighed, then his voice tightened in a building rage, deep inside of him. The Brute had done this, somehow.

The Prophet spoke, one sentence, a sentence that bade everyone in the room pause and listen attentively. _Your destruction is the will of the Gods, and we are their instrument._ The transmission and image ceased, replaced by the 3D view of the battlefield.

Everyone's attention shifted to the Arbiter. Wallace's voice was restrained and cold. "Put him in the brig. We've got a battle to win."


End file.
